Mr and Mrs B
by AmyNW
Summary: Modern. The teenage love story of Elizabeth's parents. COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: "Mr. and Mrs. B" is the sixth (and final!) story in my "Lofty Dreams" series. The first five stories, which are complete at this site, include:**

"**Lofty Dreams," a modern P&P canon story in which Darcy and Elizabeth are high school seniors, told from Elizabeth's point of view;**

"**Saturday, Sunday," and "The Picnic," two vignettes based on "Lofty Dreams," told from Darcy's POV;**

"**Touch Me Again," a sequel to "Lofty Dreams," set ten years later; and**

"**Images and Illusions," the story of Darcy's mother.**

"**Mr. and Mrs. B" tells the teenage love story of Elizabeth's parents, Joe and Ellie. It is set in the 1980s, which is the same era I grew up in, so I've incorporated some of the music I enjoyed as a teen. Since some readers may not be familiar with the songs, I've included Youtube URL's for anyone who wants to listen to them.**

**Joe and Ellie go through some very difficult challenges, so this story definitely has angst. However, it also has a lot of joy, and (in my opinion), very likeable protagonists. I hope you enjoy it!**

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**Mr. and Mrs. B**

**Chapter 1**

During the summer of 1986, everything changed for Ellie Jameson.

Life was pretty carefree up until then. Not entirely so, since her father was never far from her mind and heart. Corporal Alvin Jameson did his best to stay involved in the lives of Ellie and her brother Mitchell, four years younger. He called every week, and tried to return to the city of Meryton, Ohio or have his kids fly out to wherever he was stationed at least once a year. But still, he had a second wife, Florence, who had retired from the army to raise a family, and two more children, Damien and Nicole, ages eight and four. Ellie loved her half-siblings but found it hard not to be jealous that they got to be with Daddy all the time.

Despite the sorrow of her parents' divorce when Ellie was seven and her father's subsequent enlistment and remarriage, the seventeen-year-old was usually happy. She was surrounded by a boisterous, loving family—many aunts, uncles and cousins on both her mother and father's sides who still lived in the Meryton neighborhood known as Longbourn City. Blessed with a bubbly personality, she had lots of friends and was a popular high school cheerleader. Cpl. Jameson always paid his child support on time and Ellie's mother Arlene made decent money as a hairdresser, so she and Mitch didn't lack for much.

OK, she did lack a boyfriend. A pretty and voluptuous girl, Ellie received more than her share of male attention but nothing ever came of it, mostly because her older male cousins scared away a lot of the boys that were interested in her. She used to be annoyed at their interference, but now she was considering that maybe their over-protectiveness was a good thing. A cancer was spreading throughout Longbourn City, just as it was in many inner city neighborhoods across America, and its victims were mostly young black men. That cancer was crack cocaine.

Gangs and drugs were nothing new in Longbourn City, but prior to crack, youth gangs were mostly involved in petty theft, fistfights and smoking weed, leaving the hard drugs and violence to the adults. The recent explosion of the inexpensive and lucrative crack trade drew young people into its web, with horrific results. That summer, Ellie would experience those consequences first-hand.

For the past few months she had had a crush on her cousin Perry's friend Antoine, and she thought he liked her, too. But same old story—he probably didn't make a move because her cousin had warned him not to. At the end of the school year, Ellie had decided she'd had enough. She wasn't a child anymore. The heroines of the teen love stories she liked to read always had summer romances. She was _going_ to have a boyfriend this summer, and it looked like she'd have to make the first move herself. She decided to approach Antoine at the end-of-school year cookout Perry's mother had every June.

Neither event happened—not the Saturday cookout nor her talk with Antoine. On Friday evening, a pair of rival gangs had a shootout, at the end of which three teenage boys were dead. One of them was Antoine. Ellie would later find out that he hadn't been an innocent bystander, something that shocked her about the easy-going young man.

Antoine's death shook her to the core, making her question the rosy view she had always had of the world. She wanted a boyfriend, but didn't want to give her heart to someone who would end up getting killed. As more shootings occurred in retaliation the following week, Ellie's normally buoyant demeanor became more subdued, even though she didn't know any of the victims this time. Looking for a way to cheer herself up, she jumped at her girlfriend Yvonne's suggestion of a shopping trip to Kmart on a Friday afternoon in mid-July after they got their first summer job paychecks.

This was the second year Ellie had worked in the city-funded youth summer jobs program, and like the previous year, she was assigned to one of the clean-up crews. The kids on these crews spent twenty hours each week picking up trash in parks, sweeping sidewalks, and repainting playgrounds and schools. The painting part was fun, but the rest of it was hot, boring and exhausting. Still, even at minimum wage she cleared $200 for two weeks of work, enough to buy some cute summer clothes.

After cashing their paychecks at the local check casher store (they _always_ accepted city checks as long as you had your student ID), she and Yvonne set off for the discount store that was one of many chains and small businesses along Hertfordshire Boulevard, the main drag in Longbourn City.

"Ooh, look at these!" Ellie squealed as she pulled several tops off a rack.

"Girl, I'm looking at something even _more _cute, right over there!" Yvonne pointed to a young man hanging up packages of socks on a nearby shelf. Ellie looked over to see a nice-looking boy in the blue polo shirt, khaki pants and nametag worn by Kmart clerks. He looked vaguely familiar to her.

Yvonne grabbed the shirts out of her hand and re-shelved them. "Come on, let's go talk to him."

Ellie normally would have been up for any conversation with a cute boy, but her recent heartbreak over Antoine made her reluctant. Yvonne pulled her along, so she had no choice. When they were close enough for the boy to notice them, she was surprised when he said, "What's up, Ellie."

It took her a minute to realize who the boy was. "Joe? Joe Bennet? When did you get so tall?" Then she kicked herself for saying something so lame.

He smiled. He had dimples and warm brown eyes. "This past year."

Joe and Ellie had been in the same class in elementary school from second grade through fifth grade. He was a quiet boy and both one of the shortest and one of the smartest kids in the room. No one messed with him, though, because he was generally good-natured and had an older brother known as a badass. Joe was placed in honors classes after they started junior high, and since then, he'd hardly crossed Ellie's path or mind. Did he attend Longbourn High, like she did? If he did, she hadn't noticed him in the school of 1,800 students. She'd had no idea the short little kid had become a handsome young man of about five-ten.

Yvonne was nudging Ellie with her elbow, and Ellie guessed she wanted an introduction, so she made it. The first words out of Yvonne's mouth were, "Hey, do you get discounts 'cause you work here? We're here to buy some clothes."

Joe seemed to hesitate a little before answering, "Only when I'm on the register."

"So when are you on the register?"

Cringing, Ellie pulled Yvonne aside and whispered, "You can't ask him stuff like that! You don't even know him!"

"Yeah, but you know him, so why not?" Yvonne whispered back.

"I don't know him that well! I wouldn't even ask him that!"

"Since when have you been all goody-goody?"

Good question. A month ago, Ellie probably _would _have asked him the same thing. Now she just felt embarrassed. "We're not gonna do it, all right?"

Joe interrupted the girls' arguing. "Look, I have to get back to work or I could lose my job." Ellie used that as an opportunity to move away from him as fast as she could.

She and Yvonne each ended up buying about $100 worth of clothes, with Yvonne complaining the whole time that they could have gotten better deals if they'd waited until Joe was on the register. "I'ma come back some time and see if I see him again. I'd like to get with him _anyway_," she said suggestively.

Ellie scowled. "Please don't do that, Yvonne."

"How come? Does he have a girlfriend or something? He doesn't belong to you."

Ellie felt like it was useless to answer. What was supposed to be a fun afternoon had turned into a miserable several hours. Joe wasn't hers, but she didn't want to see Yvonne with him. Why was she feeling so possessive when she couldn't even say she knew him anymore?

Joe made her curious. It wasn't just the physical changes in him. He seemed so mature and responsible, so different from most of the boys her age she knew. How had he even gotten the job at Kmart? Several weeks earlier, she had stopped at all the stores along Hertfordshire to fill out job applications, and every one of them told her the same thing: they only wanted to hire people eighteen and up. Maybe Joe had started school late and was already eighteen. Or maybe they saw something special in him, just as she had during their brief encounter.

It may have been that something special, or perhaps a fear that Yvonne really would go back to see Joe. In either case, Ellie found herself traveling back to the Kmart in the morning to discover whether or not he was working. Usually a late sleeper on Saturdays, she woke up early enough to enter the store when it opened at nine. It only took a few minutes to spot Joe again stocking shelves, this time in the food aisle. They both said hello and then were quiet for several minutes while he continued to work, looking up now and then as if to check that she was still there.

_Oh, come on! _Ellie told herself. She was never shy around boys. If anything, she was a bit of a flirt. "Um, Joe, I just wanted to say sorry for my friend. She shouldn't have asked you about the discounts."

He smiled a little. "It's okay. Almost everybody I know does."

"How do you deal with it?"

"I can usually find some excuse to say no, like I did yesterday. If someone I know really needs something, I'll do it, but I don't want to do it all the time. I've seen people get fired for taking advantage of the employee discount."

"Do you work here every day?"

"I get two days off, but it can be a different two days each week."

Ellie's boldness was returning. "What time do you get off today?"

"At four."

"Will you take me to a movie tonight?"

Throughout their conversation, Joe hadn't stopped working, until now. He straightened his back and stared at her. "You want me to take you to a movie?"

"Yeah, I do." She gave him her most winsome smile, and it had its desired effect. Joe stumbled back against the shelf, knocking a few boxes of cereal to the floor. Ellie knelt to help him pick them up, their hands touching when they reached for the same box. She lifted her eyes to look into his, and was rewarded with a beautiful smile from him.

Joe stood up, appearing nervous but happy. "Uh… if you come at four-fifteen… I'll be by the… by the hotdogs."

"I'll see you then." Ellie walked away slowly, pretty sure he was still watching, since she knew she looked as good from the back as from the front.

*********************

Joe _was _watching, and it took several minutes before he was able to bring his head back to earth. _Ellie Jameson wanted to go out with him!!_

He had liked Ellie from the moment… well, the moment he had stopped thinking of girls as yucky, in fourth or fifth grade. He couldn't even remember what started it—maybe she had smiled at him, like she did today. She had been one of the cutest girls in elementary school, in junior high, and now at Longbourn High. She was really popular, but wasn't someone who used her popularity to bully others. Some boys talked nasty about her, like they did about many girls, but no one ever accused her of being a slut.

She was way out of his league, though. He was so used to being the smallest kid in his grade and having girls for the most part overlook him. In the past year, he'd had a rapid growth spurt, his voice deepened and his chest and arms began to fill out, and suddenly he noticed girls looking. By now, however, he was too shy to make a move on anybody he was attracted to. The last thing he expected was for Ellie to approach _him. _ Part of him wondered if it was a joke and maybe she had no plans to show up.

When his shift ended at four, he retrieved his backpack from his employee locker and changed from his work clothes into jeans and a t-shirt. He withdrew forty dollars from the store's ATM and purchased a pack of mint gum and a newspaper. He looked up the movies playing at the theater at City Center, the shopping mall that surrounded the big downtown bus and train depot.

Within a few minutes, Ellie appeared, wearing blue jean shorts and a white blouse, along with lipstick and a beautiful smile. Her clothes were a little tight, accentuating her figure, and he tried not to make it obvious that he noticed. "You ready?" she asked.

He nodded and showed her the paper. "What do you want to see?" He was happy with her selection: the movie _Aliens_, which had opened that weekend_. _"Since the next show is at six-thirty, maybe we can get something to eat at the food court down there?" he suggested.

Ellie smiled again. "That sounds good."

After he and Ellie walked out to the bus stop in front of the store, she asked him if he liked his job. He nodded.

She asked another question. "What else are you doing with your summer?" This time, Joe shrugged.

The bus arrived, and Ellie walked toward a seat in the back. Joe slipped in next to her and she looked at him quizzically. "Are you nervous or something?"

He didn't know how to answer that question without seeming like a total dork, so he just nodded. Ellie slipped her fingers in between his, and he caught his breath.

"You don't have to be nervous around me, Joe," she said. "We've known each other since the second grade."

"Yeah, but we never went out before."

She laughed. "We're just going to the movies. It's not like we're going someplace where we need to be all dressed up and have really proper manners."

He didn't know how to tell her it wasn't the venue, it was _her_ that made him anxious. He kept thinking he would say or do something stupid and she'd ridicule him.

After purchasing their tickets at the movie theater, they walked over to the food court, where Joe bought dinner for both of them.

"How'd you get the job at Kmart?" Ellie asked when they sat down. "When I applied, they told me I had to be eighteen."

"That's just for people they hire during the summer. I've been working there all year."

Ellie grinned. "So you must be making _boo-coo_ money now."

Joe reacted with alarm. Was she expecting him to spend a lot of money on her? Following Mr. Hunter's advice, he put part of his paycheck into savings for college, and part into a checking account to help his mother with groceries and bills. He usually didn't have much left over to spend.

Fortunately, Ellie kept talking. "I'm working one of the city street crew jobs."

She made a face that made him laugh. "I guess you don't like it."

"Nope. It's hot and boring. But at least I have a job."

"Better than doing nothing all summer," Joe said.

"That's true." Ellie bit one of her nails, a bad habit she had. "You still didn't tell me what else you're doing this summer. Do you like to go to parties?"

Sort of. If he knew people. "Yeah, they're okay."

"My cousin's having a party next week. Wanna go with me?"

He was astonished; she was asking him out _again?_ He recovered enough to say, "Yeah, sure."

She smiled, one of those big, beautiful smiles that made her eyes shine. "I should give you my phone number. Do you have a pen?"

He did, along with a notebook, in his backpack. He handed these to Ellie, who wrote her information down for him. Then she asked for his. When they were finished exchanging numbers, she said, "I know Pookie. Do you have any other brothers or sisters besides him?"

He grinned. Everyone knew his brother. "Yeah, I have an older sister, too."

Ellie laughed, a warm sweet sound that made him want to join her. "That means you're the baby! You don't act like it though. My little brother Mitch is such a brat, and you're not like that at all."

"Is it just you and him?"

"No, I have another little brother and sister from my father."

"Where's your father?"

"At Fort Bragg in North Carolina. He's in the army."

"Do you miss him?"

She nodded. "He calls a lot, and I'm going to go see him at the end of the summer. But I still miss him." She observed Joe quietly for a few seconds. "What about you? Is your father around?"

Now Joe made a face of his own. "If you could call it that. He still lives in Meryton, but I hardly ever see him. He shows up now and then and gives me a little money, like that makes up for it."

Ellie looked at him sympathetically. "Yeah, I guess that would be hard. At least my daddy has a reason to not be around, and I know he cares."

Joe didn't answer, since he was experiencing the usual resentment he felt whenever he thought of his father.

Ellie changed the subject. "What's Pookie's real name, anyway? I always wondered."

"Randolph." Joe grinned. "Now you know why he goes by a nickname."

Ellie's eyes got big. "What's wrong with Randolph? I like it. I like names that sound fancy and important. I always hated my name. 'Ellie.' How ordinary and boring can you get? I wish my parents had named me Elizabeth or Deirdre or something like that."

"I like Ellie." Especially because he associated the name with his dream girl.

Ellie leaned closer to him, looking at him with a sweet expression. "You do? Thank you."

Her closeness made him a little breathless, but also tense again. Why was Ellie with him?

"Is Joe short for Joseph?"

He nodded.

"I like Joseph, too. Can I call you that sometimes?"

He nodded again, thinking that she could call him anything she wanted.

"What's your sister's name?"

"Haley. Actually, it's short for Mahalia."

Ellie smacked her hands lightly on the table. "Now, see, your parents gave you all really good names! Why couldn't mine do that?"

In Joe's mind, his father's decision to "honor black heroes" as he put it, wasn't so impressive. Pop was all about the struggle, except when it came to taking care of his family. Better to have a father who was there for you, no matter what he called you.

Ellie tapped his shoulder and pointed to the clock tower in the middle of the food court. "It's 5:45. Do you want to go to the bookstore before the movie starts?"

He nodded, thrilled. He loved the bookstore, and was a little surprised that Ellie suggested it. As they stood to throw their trash away, he remembered the gum he'd bought. He took a piece and offered one to Ellie.

While they walked toward the large Barnes & Nobles in the mall, Ellie told him she was glad he had accepted her suggestion. "I thought you might, since you're so smart. None of my friends ever want to go to the bookstore with me."

"What kinds of things do you like to read?" he asked.

She hesitated. "Romance novels and fashion magazines," she replied a little sheepishly. "Pretty silly, huh?"

He shook his head. "No, it's not. You like what you like. I like sci-fi and comic books. Somebody might think that's silly, too."

As soon as they arrived at the bookstore, they parted to find their respective favorite sections. When Joe noticed that it was 6:20 by the store's clock, he picked up the two books he planned to buy and went to find Ellie.

She was holding a couple of books, too, as they walked toward the front of the store. Joe thought to himself that it would be really nice to offer to buy her books for her. But that would mean he wouldn't have enough money left to buy his own.

He made a decision. "Let me pay for those," he said when they reached the register. Ellie nodded and gave him the books. He handed the cashier Ellie's books first, and then the two paperbacks he had chosen. "I'm not getting the last two, just the other ones," he told the man.

Ellie touched his arm. "Joe, don't buy my books if you can't buy your own!"

"No, it's okay."

"No, it's not!" She stepped forward and held her hand out to the cashier. "I'll pay for those books." The confused clerk stared at her, and then began to ring up the two sci-fi stories. When he announced the total, Ellie pulled money from her pocket to pay for them. She turned to Joe and smiled. "Now it's your turn."

Joe stood there in a little bit of amazement while the cashier scanned and then placed the two romance novels in a bag. Once the purchase was made and they walked away from the counter, Ellie handed him the bag she was carrying. "Here, Joe, I have a present for you."

He took the bag, feeling a little goofy. "And I have one for you, Ellie." He handed her the bag with the books she had chosen. They both started laughing, and laughed for several minutes until Ellie was wiping tears from her eyes.

When they finally calmed down, Ellie took his hand again. "It's nice that you're as corny as I am," she said.

He smiled and for the first time that evening, really relaxed. He was starting to accept something he could scarcely believe: Ellie liked him, too!

The movie had a lot of scary parts, and Ellie was soon leaning against him, clinging to his arm. He didn't mind at all. At one point, she whispered, "Put your arm around me, Joe," and he was more than happy to do it.

Their conversation on the bus ride home flowed much more easily. When they were discussing what they liked best about the movie, Ellie said, "I loved when Ripley called the alien a bitch and told her to get away from the little girl! I can see my mama doing something like that."

He nodded. "That's cool."

"Is your mother like that, too? All protective?"

Joe got really quiet. "What's wrong?" Ellie finally asked.

"My mother has really bad rheumatoid arthritis. She can't do much."

"Do you have to take care of her a lot?"

He nodded.

She looked at him with understanding. "That's why you're so mature."

When they arrived at Ellie's apartment, she stopped by the door and looked at him. "I had a really good time, Joe."

He smiled. "Yeah. I had a good time, too."

Ellie stepped closer and placed her hands on his arms, looking up at him. It took a few seconds for him to clue in that she wanted him to kiss her. He lowered his head and placed his mouth on hers. She probed his lips with her tongue, and he opened them to let her enter. He felt her arms wrapping around his back and her breasts pressing against his chest.

The kiss seemed to last forever, and yet, was over much too soon. She stepped away and pulled her keys from her pocket. As she unlocked the door, she said, "I'm going to call you tomorrow, okay?"

Joe nodded, unable to speak anymore. After Ellie said goodnight and shut the door behind her, he remained in the same spot, reliving everything: her touch, her smile, her laughter, her kiss, the feeling of her body against him. This wasn't a dream. Ellie Jameson liked him!

Once he was finally able to move again, he started running. When he came to the stairs, he let out a whoop and leaped into the air, grabbing the part of the wall that hung over the stairwell and using it to propel himself to the floor below. He forced himself to express all his excitement while still inside Ellie's building, so that when he reached the street, he'd be able to resist the temptation to skip home.

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*** boo-coo: From the French word **_**beaucoup, **_**it has the same meaning in urban slang: much, a lot, or many.**

**** Joe and his siblings are named for Mahalia Jackson (1911-1972), an African-American gospel singer; A. Phillip Randolph (1889-1979), an early Civil Rights activist and union organizer; and Joseph Lowery (born 1921), a Civil Rights activist and close friend of Martin Luther King, Jr. Joseph Lowery gave the benediction at President Obama's inauguration.**

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	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Ellie sat in her room on Sunday night, daydreaming about Joe. While she still felt sad about Antoine's death, she couldn't remember what she had liked about him. Antoine had been one of the cool dudes hanging on the corner with her cousin Perry, and nothing about that appealed to her anymore.

Joe was shy, but that was okay. When she spoke, she felt like he really listened to her. He wasn't a boy who just wanted to talk and brag about himself. She knew he was smart, and that was good, too. She wasn't the best of students, but she respected people who were. He had a sense of humor, which was great, because Ellie loved to laugh. And he was really cute to boot. Most important, she felt like he was going somewhere with his life. He wouldn't be someone who'd end up dead on the street.

She wondered when he would call. She'd left him two messages already, and was starting to get anxious since she had to go to bed soon. About ten o'clock she heard the phone ring, but her mother answered it before Ellie could reach it. "It's a boy named Joe for you," Mama said sternly. "You tell him he doesn't call here this late anymore."

Ellie took the phone into her bedroom, hoping Joe hadn't heard her mother. No such luck, since his first words were, "Sorry, Ellie, I didn't mean to get you in trouble."

"That's okay. What happened?"

"I had to work from twelve to eight-thirty today, and then I had to help my mother with some stuff. This is the first chance I had to call you back."

Her heart was singing. He hadn't ignored her calls! "How was your day?"

"It was all right. Just working. What about you?"

"We went to church this morning, and then to my aunt's house. Then we came home and my mother did my hair. That was about it." Joe didn't say anything after that, so she asked, "What days do you have off this week?"

"Wednesday and Saturday."

"My job ends at one. Do you want to do something on Wednesday afternoon?"

"I can't," he said slowly. "I have to go with my mother to the doctor and then do some other stuff for her."

"Oh," Ellie replied, disappointed and oddly hurt.

He must have heard it in her voice. "Ellie, I had fun yesterday. I want to spend time with you. But sometimes I can't."

He meant it, she could feel it. She remembered that his mother was sick, and told herself not to make him feel bad about having to help her out. "What about Saturday then? Are you still coming to my cousin's party with me?"

"Yeah, I'm coming. What time is it?"

"It starts at eight. Hey, can we meet before that? I want to spend time with you, too."

All Joe said in response was, "Okay," but he laughed a little, his voice sounding happy, so she hung up feeling pretty good.

The week seemed to last forever as Ellie waited for Saturday. Although she talked to Joe every day, it was killing her not to see him. On Thursday she decided to pay him a surprise visit at Kmart. He was at one of the registers and had two people in line. She grabbed a candy bar and stood behind the other customers. Joe smiled at her when he saw her there, making her heart flutter.

"Hi," she said when she reached. Joe said hi back, and then asked, "Do you need a bag?" as he scanned her candy bar. She shook her head, a little taken aback. He'd looked happy to see her when she was waiting in line, but now he was treating her like any other customer.

She swallowed her frustration and asked when he would have a break. "Not for a couple of hours," he answered.

She smiled coyly at him. "Can I come back for a kiss then?"

She thought she saw a brief flicker of eagerness in his eyes, but his serious expression didn't change, and he never answered her question. "Ellie, there are people in line. I have to take them."

She looked back and noticed several people standing behind her. She nodded, disappointed. "OK, I'll see you later."

Her unhappiness continued when she got home, and she picked a fight with her brother Mitch because of it. Last Saturday she had been convinced Joe liked her, but this week he was acting as if she didn't matter to him.

He called about eight, which was good, because she hadn't wanted to call him. "Hi," she told him, a little coldly.

"Are you mad at me about this afternoon?" he asked.

She wanted to—what? Make him sweat, like some of her friends said they did when their boyfriends ticked them off? Except she didn't know how to do that; it wasn't in her nature to be mean. "A little," she said. "I thought you'd be happy to see me."

"Ellie, I was! I was really happy to see you. It's just… I've been at Kmart almost a year and I've seen a lot of people get fired during that time. One reason is talking to their friends or girlfriend or boyfriend when they're supposed to be working. And I really need my job, and…." His voice trailed off.

Ellie couldn't stay mad. He sounded so sincere, and she didn't want him to get in trouble at work. "Are you saying you did want a kiss, just not on the job?"

"Heck, yeah!"

She smiled. "Then when I see you on Saturday, I want a really big one to make up for today."

"But I didn't see you yesterday, or the day before either."

Ellie was puzzled for a second, and then it hit her: Joe was flirting with her! She giggled. "I have to kiss you to make up for every day this week then!"

Joe chuckled. "I can get with that."

She found herself laughing with delight. She had no idea if this was how she should resolve a conflict with her boyfriend or not, but she didn't care. She didn't want to fight with Joe; she liked him too much. And she told him so.

He was quiet for a second. "I really like you, too," he said softly.

A feeling of warmth filled her whole body. They talked for a while longer, and Ellie couldn't even remember the topics they discussed; she only knew that her heart was soaring.

*********************

Because he only occasionally had Saturdays off, this was one of the rare weekends Joe was able to sleep in. Nevertheless, he was still the first one in his household to get up when he rose at 10:30. His mother, who slept fitfully, tended to stay in bed for a long time to make sure she got adequate rest, and his brother and sister were night owls.

His twenty-one year old sister Haley ran her own office cleaning business, usually working from about seven in the evening until two or three in the morning. Even when she wasn't working, however, she stayed up late in order to go out with friends or to paint, because she said she was most creative at night. Since she had no reason to wake up early, she almost never did.

Pookie, on the other hand, stayed up late whether he had to get up in the morning or not. Currently he needed to rise by seven to attend summer school. He should have graduated in June, but had one class to make up. Since he usually hung out until all hours with his friends, he depended on Joe to wake him up most mornings.

Joe looked at his snoring brother and grinned. Although he didn't have his diploma yet, Pookie had managed to get accepted into a construction apprenticeship program for the fall. He was charming and articulate enough to convince people he could succeed despite his shaky high school record. The question was, would he be able to commit himself to showing up every day, something he hadn't done in high school?

He shook his head. He had much better things to think about than his brother. Like Ellie, and seeing her this afternoon!

His more pleasant thoughts were soon interrupted by sounds of his mother stirring outside his room. He quickly rose to help her with whatever she needed. He heard her in the bathroom, so he went to the kitchen to start making breakfast.

He had taken eggs and bread out of the refrigerator when his mother entered, moving slowly with her walker. Joe helped her sit down at the table without asking how she was feeling. She'd tell him if she wanted him to know.

He opened a cabinet and reached for a small needle and a test strip. His mother laid her hand palm-up on the table. Taking her hand in his, Joe cleansed the tip of her middle finger with a small alcohol swab, and then pricked her finger with the needle. He then massaged her finger until it produced a drop of blood, which he caught with the test strip. He sat next to his mother and waited until the strip changed color.

His mother frowned when she saw the result. Her blood sugar was high this morning. "Get my insulin, sweetie." Joe nodded, and went to the refrigerator to take out a small bottle. He also took a larger needle from the cabinet and another alcohol swab. After Joe inserted the needle in the bottle to withdraw an appropriate amount of insulin, Ma lifted her night shirt to expose her waist to him. He wiped a spot with another swab and inserted the needle. Even though Joe knew the injection hurt, Ma barely winced.

Her rheumatoid arthritis affected her in numerous ways. The inability to be physically active had led to Type II diabetes, and the swollen knuckles in her hands made it impossible for her to monitor her own blood sugar or give herself injections. Joe and his siblings were all so accustomed to taking care of this procedure for her before mealtimes, they could almost do it automatically.

The process completed, Joe turned on the stove to scramble the eggs and added bread to the toaster. A few minutes later, he served both himself and his mother. Only when he was finally seated did his mother tell him good morning.

"What do you need me to do today?" he asked.

"Can you go by the drugstore for my medicine? And stop by the library to get me some books on tape?"

Joe nodded. His mother loved to read, but her diabetes had led to diminished eyesight. The local library didn't have a huge selection of books on tape, but the librarian knew Joe well and remembered his mother, and was more than willing to request interlibrary loans from other branches for her.

"See if you can pick up a video when you're there, too. We can watch it tonight."

"I'm going out tonight," he answered.

His mother didn't seem surprised, even though he didn't go out much in the evenings. "With Ellie?" she asked.

He noticed her eyes twinkling. How many calls from Ellie had his mother answered that week? "Yeah," he replied.

"Is she somebody you work with?"

"No, I know her from school."

"Is she cute?"

Joe grinned. "Yeah."

"Well, have a good time."

His smile widened. "I will."

*********************

Ellie raced from her home and down the street, unable to contain her excitement. She had arranged to meet Joe at four in the afternoon at J.T.'s, a record shop in the neighborhood. They arrived about the same time, saying hello and then standing and grinning foolishly at each other for several minutes. Then Joe said, "Do you want to maybe listen to some records?"

His breaking the ice spurred Ellie into action. "Not yet." She grabbed his hand and pulled him inside the store. The small shop had several high racks with albums, single LP's and cassettes resting in slots. Ellie led Joe to the aisle farthest from the door. No one would see them there unless they came down that particular aisle. "You owe me something," she said with a devilish grin.

He laughed. "Yeah, I do."

Ellie put her arms around his neck and kissed him. His lips were soft and gentle and his tongue sweet to the taste. The first kiss lasted about fifteen seconds. "That's for Sunday," she said with a smile.

As they proceeded to exchange kisses for each day the week, each one became longer and deeper, and their bodies pressed together more tightly. By the time they reached Friday, Ellie, aroused and giddy, started laughing. She looked at Joe, who had pulled back from her but was gazing at her with such a sweet, tender expression.

It was hard, but she forced herself to stop laughing. She took Joe's hand again. "I'm really glad to see you."

"Me, too."

She tilted her head. "Maybe we can go listen to some records now."

A record player or small boom box with accompanying headphones rested on a stand at the end of each aisle, and customers could listen to a few samples if they wished. "What do you like to listen to?" she asked.

"Mostly rap," he said. "I really like Kurtis Blow. What about you?"

"I love Prince. And Janet and Sheila E—those are my girls!"

They spent the next hour listening to as many samples as the store had available, until the owner told them they needed to buy something or leave the store. "You want something to eat?" Joe asked.

Ellie said yes, and they decided to go to a nearby pizza and sub shop, where they both ordered steak and cheese sandwiches. "I can't believe I never see you at school," she said after they started eating.

Joe shrugged. "I see you all the time." He smiled. "You're hard to miss."

She felt herself blushing. "You go to the games?" If he did, he'd have seen her cheer.

He nodded. "Most of them."

"Who do you hang out with at school?"

"Do you know Dwayne and Angie?"

"On the school paper? Yeah, I know them."

"They're probably two of my best friends."

"Are you on the paper, too?"

He shook his head. "I used to be. I work a lot now, so it doesn't give me much time."

"Why do you work so much?" She kicked herself, since it was obvious that he must need the money. "Sorry, stupid question."

"It's okay. My mom hasn't been able to work for about five years. She gets SSDI*, and that's not enough to pay all the bills. Plus, I'm trying to save for college."

"You really want to go to college?"

He nodded. "Did you have Mr. Hunter at Warwick?" he asked, referring to a teacher from their junior high school.

Ellie smiled. "Yeah, I did, for social studies! He was mean, but you know, in a good way. Like he was mean because he cared about his students, not because he was just a mean person."

Joe laughed. "That's a good description of him. Anyway, he became kind of like my mentor, and we still keep in touch. He started talking to me back in seventh grade about how I should go to college, so I've been thinking about it since then." He paused to take a few more bites of his sandwich. "What about you?"

She made a face. "I don't know. I mean, I'm not all that great a student. My mother's a hair dresser, and I think I want to go to cosmetology school like she did." She looked at him, a little worried. "Are you still getting all A's like you did in elementary school?" She wondered if he would look down on her because she wasn't as smart as he was.

He grinned wryly. "I don't get all A's. A's and B's."

As if sensing she needed some reassurance, he reached out and touched her face. His caress produced a warm shiver in her, tempting her to want to kiss him again right then and there. "How long has your mother been sick?" she asked instead.

"Since I was about eight. She was diagnosed a couple years before that, but that's when it started to get bad."

"And does it make it, I guess, hard for her to walk and stuff?" She saw Joe hesitate, and quickly apologized. "I shouldn't be all in your family business. I really want to get to know you, that's all."

His face registered a look of appreciation. "It _is_ hard for her to walk, and to do a lot of other things, like use her hands. Rheumatoid arthritis is debilitative, and she has other stuff now too, like diabetes."

"What's debilitative?"

"It means it keeps getting worse."

Ellie took his hand and squeezed it. "That must be so hard for all of you. And your dad doesn't do anything to help out?"

A dark look crossed Joe's face, and Ellie felt terrible. "Oh Joe, I'm being all nosey, and it's none of my business."

Joe looked at her tenderly. "It's not you, Ellie. My pop just pisses me off, that's all. I don't mind sharing stuff like that with you."

"Really?"

"Yeah, and I really want to get to know you, too."

Ellie was so thankful Joe said that. Now they both knew they could really open up to each other, something she did with nobody except her best friend Karima. After they finished eating, they walked first to a corner grocery store that sold ice cream cones, and later to the playground at their old elementary school where they sat down and watched young children playing. While they ate their ice cream, Joe started telling her about how he felt about his father's abandonment. She shared that she felt much the same way about her own father, even though he continued to be involved in her life. She also told him about the tough time she had liking her stepmother, even though she knew that Florence was a good wife to Daddy and good mother to her younger siblings.

"Do you resent her for taking your father?" Joe asked her.

"Maybe. But it's more that I always get this feeling, even though she never really says it out loud, that she doesn't think my mother is doing a good job raising me and Mitch."

Joe's mouth lifted into a closed-lip smile. "Adults always think they can hide what they're feeling from you. Like my mother. I wish she would hate my father, like I do. But she doesn't. She never really says anything about it, but she still misses him, I can tell."

As the sun started setting, the little kids started leaving, probably heading home. She grinned at Joe and pointed to the abandoned play area. "Want to get on the swings?"

He laughed at her silliness, but said sure. When they started competing to see who could swing the highest, Ellie thought again how much she liked the fact that she could be goofy around Joe. "I got you BEAT!" he shouted as he flew past her. Knowing she couldn't allow that, she swung her legs out as far as they could go, and found her swing twisting suddenly and coming to a rapid slowdown and drop. As soon as her feet were on the ground again, the world started spinning and she placed her head in her hands.

"You okay?" Joe asked, after jerking his own swing and kicking his legs down to bring himself to a stop.

"Yeah, I just got dizzy all of a sudden." She looked up. "It's funny, because I used to swing for hours when I was little and it never bothered me."

He laughed. "I'm a little dizzy, too, but I didn't feel it until I stopped. I guessed we're too big for this stuff, huh?"

She reached for his hand and started to stand. "We should leave for the party now anyway."

"Ellie," he said, pulling her back down. She turned her head to meet his and they shared a long, sweet kiss, ending sooner than she wished only because mosquitoes had started coming out in the cooler evening air and attacking. Joe grabbed her hand and they ran out of the park together, swatting at the swarms around them. They both started laughing when they reached the street, and Joe put his arms around her and hugged her tightly.

*********************

The party was already in full swing when they reached Ellie's cousin's apartment, and it was wall to wall people. Ellie found a spot in the corner where they could dance, but they had to stay really close together so they wouldn't bump into anyone else. Not that Joe minded. The day had been amazing, from their passionate kisses in the record shop to the conversations they'd had over dinner and in the playground. He had told Ellie things about his family—even more, things he _felt_ about his family—that he'd never shared with anyone.

About an hour after they arrived, the DJ announced that he was going to slow things up, and some of the folks cleared off the dance floor. Those that remained put their arms around their significant others as the crooning voice of Freddy Jackson began to play. Joe was sweating from the heat and dancing but Ellie didn't seem to care, putting her arms around his neck and laying her head on his chest as she pressed against him. The lyrics of the song filled his head, and he felt himself as close to heaven as he'd ever been.

_There's nothing that I'd rather do  
Than spend every moment with you  
I guess you should know  
I love you so_

You are my lady  
You're everything I need and more  
You are my lady  
You're all I'm living for**

He had been infatuated with Ellie for years, but she'd always been a distant, unreachable dream. Now here she was, his lady, and he realized that his infatuation had turned to love. As if she knew what he was thinking, Ellie lifted her head and smiled at him, and he bent his neck to kiss her. Just as their lips brushed, however, he felt someone jerk his arm roughly.

"Yo, man, why you messing with my cousin!"

He looked up into an angry face he recognized as a friend of his brother's.

Ellie gripped Joe's hand tightly. "Perry, don't start anything!" she hissed.

"Naw, Ellie, I'm not gonna let some fool touch you like this!"

"He's not a fool, he's my boyfriend!" she yelled. At that, the party stopped. The DJ cut the music and everyone started staring, waiting to see what would happen.

Perry got right into Joe's face. "Man, you better get away from my cousin!" A few people started instigating, shouting encouragements to Perry, while others started leaving the party before something serious occurred.

Joe glared right back, nose to nose with Perry. He didn't like to fight, but one thing he had learned from growing up in Longbourn City was that you didn't back down.

Ellie was still yelling. "I'm not a little kid anymore, Perry, and you need to stay out of my business!"

Someone suddenly moved in to separate him and Perry. It was Pookie. This wasn't the first time in Joe's life that his brother had stepped in to spare him from a fight. Pookie started talking in the casual, almost humorous tone of voice he usually had. "Hey, Perry, why you giving my brother a hard time?"

Perry was still spitting mad. "This punk is your brother?"

"Yeah, he's my brother and he's not a punk. And I wouldn't worry about your cousin. Joe's a good kid."

Perry kept glowering at Joe. Finally, he said, "You better not hurt her," and walked away.

With the tension of the moment gone, the DJ put the music back on and the crowd started to drift back to dancing or eating and drinking. Joe stood still for a long time, his heart still racing. "Why don't you take your girl home?" he heard Pookie say in his ear, so he turned to look at Ellie. "You want to leave?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I do."

They were both quiet on the four block walk to her place. Joe wondered how his brother always managed to get him out of tight spots like that. People seemed afraid of Pookie, but Joe couldn't remember him actually ever being in a fight. His brother and sister both had this "Back off" air about them that intimidated people, even when they seemed calm and relaxed the way Pookie had tonight. Still, whatever the cause, Joe was grateful for it.

When they arrived at the steps of Ellie's building, neither was ready to say good night. Ellie put her arms around him. "I'm so sorry about how tonight turned out."

"Oh Ellie," he answered. "Except for your cousin, tonight was the best night of my life."

"Really?" she said, her eyes shining. "For me, too."

They kissed gently, and Ellie said, "Do you want to sit and talk for a while?"

They sat on the stoop, still holding each other. "My cousins drive me crazy, especially Perry," she said. "Do you know I've never had a boyfriend before because of junk they pull like that?"

He was stunned. "So many boys like you, though."

She snorted. "Yeah, well, I was still never able to go with anybody before. I decided this summer I was going to have a boyfriend, no matter what my cousins try to do."

Joe was a little worried by this revelation. Was he just someone she chose to tick off her cousins, or did she really care about him? "So… why me?"

Ellie placed her hand on his cheek and looked deeply into his eyes. "Joe, you're the sweetest boy I know. You're everything I ever dreamed of in a boyfriend."

She did, she cared about him! Joe wanted to tell her he loved her, but held back in order to not freak her out in case it was too soon. Instead, he kissed her, softly at first, and then more intensely. As he felt her hands running over his arms and her breasts pressed against him again, his already powerful desires for her skyrocketed. He pulled back after a few minutes, a little frightened by how badly he wanted her, since he had no experience whatsoever.

But then, it sounded like neither did she, so maybe it was okay.

They remained in each other's arms for several minutes. Ellie then said, "I should go in. Will you call me tomorrow?"

He smiled. "I'll definitely call you tomorrow."

*********************

*** SSDI: Social Security Disability Insurance**

**** "You Are My Lady." Performed by Freddy Jackson, Capitol Records, 1985. You can hear it on Youtube at: .com/watch?v=WqDkK1K5k4Q**

PAGE


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

After the night of the party, Ellie knew that her summer romance dreams had come true. She and Joe talked on the phone daily, usually until her mother told her it was time to hang up. She wasn't able to see him every day, despite how much she wished to; however, they did manage to spend time together three or four times a week. And her family seemed to acknowledge Pookie's pronouncement that Joe was a good kid, and they accepted her relationship with him.

Tuesday was one of Joe's days off during the second week in August, and she knew that as usual, he had a lot of things to do for his mother. After her own job ended for the day, she went home to shower and change, and decided to visit her mother at the beauty shop where she worked on Hertfordshire Boulevard.

"Hi, baby," Mama greeted her, kissing her cheek without missing a beat with the curling iron she was using on a customer's hair.

As with many hair salons, House of Beauty's busiest day was Saturday, so its stylists had Sunday and Monday off—which meant Tuesday was almost as busy a day as Saturday. Ellie suspected that her mother hadn't had a break for lunch, so she asked her. "No, sweetie, and I'm starving, too. Get some money from my purse and buy me a fish sandwich and coleslaw from Cal's."

Ellie spotted her mother's purse on the floor and pulled out a ten dollar bill before setting off for Cal's, a small eating establishment several blocks away. A few doors prior to Cal's, she heard Joe call out her name. She turned, thrilled to see him waving from inside a laundromat. He stepped out to the sidewalk and kissed her. "What are you doing around here?" he asked.

"Getting lunch for my mother. Want to come with me?"

"Yeah, I just put the clothes in the dryer, so I have time."

Joe took her hand and fell in step beside her as they walked to Cal's. Since the storefront diner only had room enough to seat about a dozen people, a long line of folks waiting for takeout frequently snaked outside the door. Today was no exception. The crowd was congenial despite the heat, which Cal's ceiling fans did little to mitigate.

A video show played on a large TV mounted on the wall, and soon, Janet Jackson's _"Nasty"_ was on the screen. "Ooh, that's my jam!" Ellie cried, as she started imitating Janet's moves to the extent she could in the cramped space.

"Ellie, stop," Joe whispered.

"Why?"

Joe leaned so his mouth was close to her ear. " 'Cause that dude's checking you out."

Her head snapped around and she saw a man in line, leering at her. When he realized she spotted him, he gave her a gap-toothed grin. "Naw, baby, don't stop!"

_Dirty old man! _Ellie thought. She hated it when men old enough to be her father looked at her. Joe moved closer and placed a possessive arm around her shoulder, glaring at him.

"Whatchu looking at, you little punk?" the man threatened. "I'll jack you up!"

"Hey!" came the booming voice of Cal, a 6'5" Vietnam vet, from behind the counter. "Don't bring that in here, Leroy!"

"I'll catch you outside, punk," Leroy said in a lower but still menacing voice. Ellie felt nervous but protected, since Joe kept his arm around her and didn't back down from his stare.

A woman standing nearby turned and looked at Leroy. "Oh, shut up! You are so full of crap!" She turned to Ellie and Joe. "Don't listen to him. He's just talk. He won't do nothing."

Leroy mumbled under his breath for a few minutes more, before finally shutting up.

After receiving their order, Ellie and Joe started back toward the House of Beauty. The frown on Joe's face troubled her. He hadn't spoken since the confrontation with Leroy. "Are you mad about what happened back there?" she asked.

Joe's nostrils flared as he exhaled. "Ellie, I don't think you realize the effect you have on men. If he had pushed it, I would have had to defend you, and what if he had had a knife or a gun?"

Ellie was quiet for several minutes. She had wanted a boyfriend who wasn't involved in the street life, and here she was a short while ago, feeling happy Joe would fight for her without thinking about the consequences. _"Stop being so fast," _her mother had told her more times than she could count. She liked to flirt and liked the fact that guys thought she was attractive. What was wrong with that, she always thought, as long as she wasn't doing anything?

But she didn't want to garner unwanted attention the way she had today, and she definitely didn't want to put Joe in any danger. "I'm sorry," she said.

His face softened and he took her free hand. "It's not your fault. You should be able to dance without some creep looking at you like that, but that's the way the world is. I love having a girlfriend who's so pretty, but it has its downsides."

Ellie couldn't help but smile. "Were you jealous, Joe?"

He looked like he was trying to hold back a grin, and failed. "A little."

Still holding his hand, she pivoted to face him. "Don't worry, the only person I want is you."

His face lit up in a beaming smile and he held her gaze for several seconds before squeezing her hand. "Come on, your mom's probably hungry."

*********************

Poor Joe. Ellie looked at her boyfriend, who was quiet again as they walked back to his family's apartment carrying the bags of laundry. The women her mother worked with had thoroughly embarrassed him with their compliments. However, Ellie knew he was probably upset by the question asked by one: "Hey, is your daddy single?"

Her mother must have sensed Joe's discomfort, because she said yes to Ellie's request to return and help Joe without any added lectures or warnings other than, "Just make sure dinner's ready when I get home at seven."

Stepping into Joe's apartment was like entering a museum. Paintings hung on all the walls, and several others rested on the floor. A pair of easels held a couple of works in progress. Some of the paintings were of things Ellie recognized: landscapes, street scenes, or drawings of people. Others contained no discernable images, just vibrant colors and patterns. Prior to that moment, Ellie wouldn't have considered the latter real art at all, even though she knew from field trips that people made artwork like that. But Joe's sister's designs touched a chord within her. She walked around, silently taking it all in.

"I guess you like Haley's stuff," Joe said, chuckling at her awe-struck face.

Ellie nodded. "Your sister has some _serious_ talent. Do you draw too?"

Joe laughed. "I wish."

After putting away the laundry, Joe offered her something to drink, and she asked if she could turn on the radio. He shook his head. "My mother and sister are sleeping."

Ellie remembered him telling her that his sister worked nights, and figured that his mother needed a lot of rest. "Can I see your room then?"

He reached for her hand. "Come on."

Ellie laughed as soon as she saw his room, which contained two twin beds and a dresser next to the door. One bed was neatly made; the other, a sloppy pile of sheets and clothing. "That has to be Pookie's side of the room," she said, pointing to the mess.

"You sure I'm not the slob?" he asked. Ellie rolled her eyes and he grinned. "OK, yeah, you're right, it's Pookie."

She spotted the Longbourn High yearbook on top of the dresser and picked it up. "Is this yours or your brother's?"

"Mine."

Ellie sat on Joe's bed and began flipping through it. Unlike hers, it wasn't covered with handwritten notes from friends. "Did you get copies made of your class picture?"

Joe shook his head. "Aw, that's too bad," she said. "I want a picture of you."

He sat down beside her. "Can I get one of you?"

She smiled. "Yeah, if I have any left. I think I do." Looking for his picture, she turned to the section of the juniors, thumbnail black and whites in contrast to the larger, full color senior photos. "How come you didn't smile?" she asked when she found it.

Joe shrugged. "I never smile in pictures."

"You should. You have a great smile. I love your dimples." Ellie turned and studied Joe's face. She liked looking at him. He had Hershey bar-chocolate skin, somewhat darker than her own hot cocoa with melted marshmallows complexion, and large brown eyes that conveyed warmth and depth. Soulful eyes, her mother would call them. She traced her finger over his mouth. He had nice lips, too.

Joe caught her finger with his hand and kissed it, and then leaned closer to kiss her lips. When their tongues started dancing together, Ellie sensed a sweet warmth that filled her from head to toe. She usually felt this way when they kissed, but never so intensely before, making her body tremble and creating a yearning for more. She rolled onto her back and he followed, laying on top of her. Joe began to rub himself against her slowly at first and then faster, creating sensations of exquisite pleasure for her. After a few minutes, he rolled off, breathing heavily.

She felt sad. She hadn't wanted him to stop. Joe was looking at the ceiling, not at her, so she reached out and touched his face. "Are you okay?"

"We shouldn't be doing this, Ellie."

He was probably right, but still, she liked the way it felt. "Did you ever do it before? I mean, all the way?" She wasn't sure why she asked, since she was pretty certain the answer was no.

He didn't answer, so Ellie raised herself up on one elbow to look into his face. "It's okay, Joe, neither have I."

She saw his lips move up into a smile. "Guys aren't supposed to admit it."

She scowled. "Why not? It's so unfair. If you're a girl and people know you're not having sex, they think you're square, but if you are, they call you a slut or a ho. Girls can't win, but boys are expected to be doing it."

"Yeah, but if he's not, they call him gay."

Ellie reached over and stroked him between the legs. His eyelids fluttered and his intake of breath was audible. She giggled. "You're not gay, Joe."

He laughed. "I'm glad you know that." He pulled her on top of him and kissed her, which was probably a mistake, because they were soon rubbing their bodies together again. Once more, Joe was the one who stopped it. Disappointed, Ellie lay beside him and rested her head on his shoulder.

"Hey, Joe," she asked after a few minutes, "Can I see your thing?"

His head snapped toward her and his eyes popped wide open.

"It's just that I've never seen a real one before. Well, my brother's when he was little, but that doesn't count."

He hesitated and then began to unzip his shorts. Ellie's eyes widened and she smiled. "Can I touch it?"

He gave a small, awkward laugh and nodded. That began a period of intense petting between the two of them. At one point, Ellie began to feel nervous. Were they going too fast, heading somewhere she wasn't yet ready to go? But her anxiety was soon forgotten as Joe's hands caused her body's heat and bliss to rise to levels she had never before experienced.

At the end, Joe lifted his shirt and pulled her against him, bare chest to bare chest, both of them covered in perspiration. His loud, rapid heartbeat matched hers as she lay there, eyes closed, her breathing slowly returning to normal. She wanted to savor it all—the security of lying in his arms, the softness of his lips kissing her forehead and eyelids, and most of all, the delicious hum down there. She had never felt so good before, physically or emotionally. Was this what being in love felt like?

The contentment of the moment was interrupted by a knock at the door. "Joe, are you in there?" came a voice Ellie recognized from her phone calls as his mother.

Joe swore under his breath and sat up rapidly. "Yeah, I'll be out in a minute," he called back.

Ellie closed her eyes again, this time from fear and embarrassment. "What do we do?" she whispered.

"We have to go out there."

Ellie screamed inwardly. Her clothes were wrinkled, her panties soaked, her hair a mess, and he expected her to leave the room to meet his mother!

He noticed her expression and took her hand, speaking softly. "We have to, honey. It'll be okay."

Her stomach churning, she sat up and turned her back to him. "Uh… can you help me?"

Joe quickly figured out that she needed him to re-fasten her bra. He did so and then slipped his arms around her from behind, one beneath her chin and the other across her breasts. He leaned forward to rest his head on her shoulder, his mouth near her ear. "I love you, Ellie," he whispered.

No words could have done more to calm her anxiety. She turned her neck to kiss his cheek. "I love you, too, Joe."

Releasing her, he stood and offered a hand to help her up, his face full of tenderness and affection. She rose, zipped her shorts and pulled down her shirt, feeling uncomfortably wet and sticky. "Do I look okay?"

He grinned. "You look like you've been doing something you shouldn't."

Her panic returned. "Oh, God, Joe…"

He placed his hands on her shoulders. "I shouldn't have said that. Listen, when we leave, the bathroom's to the right…"

She could only nod in response.

*********************

Despite his reassurances to Ellie, Joe was nervous when he entered the living room. His mother sat in the easy chair watching an afternoon talk show while his sister stood behind her, French-braiding her hair. "You okay?" Ma asked, her expression puzzled.

He nodded and walked over to the kitchen sink to wash his hands. The smell was a definite give-away for what he'd been up to.

"I'm going to the store soon," Haley said when he returned to the living room. "Do you want to go with me?" He nodded again.

Both women looked up when they heard the bathroom door shut. Ellie entered the living room, having smoothed out her clothing and hair and wearing a bright smile that belied the fear she'd expressed in the bedroom. His mother and sister looked from her to him. Ma seemed worried, but Haley appeared amused.

Ellie marched right in. "Hi, I'm Ellie. You must be Ms. Bennet and Haley."

"It's Ms. Jackson," his mother responded curtly.

"Sorry, Ms. Jackson. I've been wanting to meet you for a long time. Joe's so sweet and you did such a good job raising him."

Joe couldn't help but smile. What mother could resist a compliment like that about her _and _her baby? Sure enough, Ma's frown disappeared. "We been hearing a lot about you lately, Ellie."

Haley wiped her hands on a towel and held one out to Ellie. "S'up, girl. Nice to finally meet you."

Ellie took her hand. "I love your dreadlocks, Haley. I wish I was brave enough to wear them."

Haley snorted. "What does bravery have to do with it? It's about appreciating our natural hair texture and not trying to conform to white standards of beauty—"

"Ha-ley," Joe said, the first word he'd spoken since entering the room.

His sister laughed. "Sorry, Ellie, my little brother hates when I go off on my political diatribes."

Ellie grinned. "It's okay. I really love your paintings, too. I wish I could paint like that."

"Well, you must have some form of self-expression. I think most people do."

Ellie wrinkled her nose. "I like to dance, but that's just for fun." She paused and then said, "Can I ask you a favor, Haley?"

His sister raised an enquiring eyebrow.

"Would you do a painting of Joe for me? It doesn't have to be big. He doesn't have any school pictures, and I want one of him."

If his girlfriend had impressed his mother earlier, she'd just won over his sister, who smiled broadly. "I'd love to paint Joe, if I can get him to sit down and pose for me. Maybe he'll do it now, since it's for you."

"Make sure he smiles, though. I want to see his dimples."

Ellie talked to his mother and sister for a few more minutes, and then said she had to go home. Joe walked her out and threw his arms around her as soon as he shut the apartment door behind them. "So I did okay in there?" she asked.

Joe laughed. "More than okay." He pulled back a little in order to gaze at her beautiful face, cupping her chin in his hand.

She leaned forward to kiss him, and within fractions of a second, they were inhaling each other's mouths while wrapped in a crushing embrace, with Ellie practically climbing up his leg. He forced himself to pull away, wondering if he'd ever be able to kiss her again without having such an intense reaction.

She looked at him openly, her eyes bright and her breathing deep. "Did you mean it when you said you love me?"

"Ellie, I…" He decided to tell her. "I've been in love with you for a long time. Years."

She flashed her megawatt smile. "Then I'm glad I saw you in Kmart that day."

"Me, too." He wanted to kiss her again, but realized it was dangerous here in a public place like the hallway. He swallowed, remembering. "Ellie, you feel okay about the stuff we did earlier?"

She nodded. "I loved it." She touched his arm. "I love _you_, Joe."

"I love you, too." They exchanged a quick kiss, knowing that was all they could handle, and said goodbye.

As soon as he saw Ma's face upon re-entering the apartment, he knew Ellie's charm hadn't been enough to override his mother's concerns. "Sit down, Joe," she said firmly. He sat.

"Ma, don't get all over his case. He's seventeen," Haley said.

"All the more reason I _should_ get all over his case. He's at that age."

Joe was surprised and more than a little uneasy about the anger he heard in her voice. His mother tended to be very easygoing about her children's personal lives. He assumed it was because she only had so much energy each day, and so the issues she raised tended to be the ones she found most important: finish high school, stay off drugs, don't do things that could land you in jail. She almost never brought up anything about their relationships with the opposite sex. He nervously waited for his mother to start, but instead, she sighed. "You really like this girl?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I do."

"I liked her, too. She seems sweet. But I don't want you bringing home no grandbabies. So you make sure you use a condom. Every. Single. Time. You hear me?"

He nodded again, relieved that this was the extent of her lecture. "Yes, ma'am."

Back in his room, Joe allowed himself to smile, and found he couldn't stop smiling. Everything had ended faster than he had wanted it to, much faster than when he touched himself… but that was because Ellie's hands on him felt so much better than his own! And just thinking about her body excited him again.

His fantasies about her were even more intense than anything they'd done together that day, and he suddenly thought of his mother's warning. He wasn't sure he was ready for sex. In one way, yeah, he was—his hormones had been in overdrive for a year. But Ma was right, he didn't want Ellie getting pregnant. He had no clue how to use a condom, although he assumed he could figure it out. Or he could ask Pookie to show him, but he didn't want to deal with his brother's teasing that he was certain would follow. So maybe they could stick to fooling around the way they had today. _That_ had been a lot of fun.

*********************

*** "Nasty." Janet Jackson, A&M Records, 1986. You can hear it on Youtube here: **

**.com/watch?v=nLLweEwG8Ss**

**Author's note: I hope that this chapter falls within the guidelines of 's T rating. I've looked at several M-rated stories, and most are much more explicit than this, so I don't think people who want to read M stories would be interested in this tale. Also, such scenes are a very small part of my story overall. Your thoughts and guidance, readers, would be appreciated!**

PAGE


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

"How'd you get to close to Mr. Hunter, anyway?" Ellie asked on a Friday evening in late August, while they waited on the steps of Joe's building for the man they were discussing to pick them up. They were avoiding a different topic on both their minds: Ellie's departure the next morning to visit her father.

"One day around the beginning of seventh grade, he asked me to stay after class. He told me he'd had my sister and brother before me and didn't feel like they'd lived up to their potential. He said he didn't want to see the same thing happen to me."

Joe recalled that discussion well. _"Mahalia and Randolph were two of the brightest students I ever had, but she just wanted to argue with me all the time, and he was too busy trying to impress the girls or make people laugh to get much work done." Joe had smiled at the accuracy of those descriptions. _

"_So what about you, Joseph? I have another Bennet in my class this year and I have to wonder what kind of student he's going to be."_

_Joe stared at him, confused. "A good one, I guess. I got good grades last year."_

"_That's not what I'm talking about. You've done well on your homework so far, so I assume you'll get a good grade in my class. I'm talking about fulfilling your potential, stretching yourself. Your sister liked to argue with me, and I would tell her, 'Prove me wrong. Go do some research and show me how I'm wrong.' She never took me up on that. That was a shame, because I would have welcomed being incorrect if a student had really done the work to prove it."_

Joe smiled, remembering. "He challenged me to do extra for class. Like when we were reading about the Bill of Rights in the book, he told me to go to the library and read the whole Constitution and all its amendments for real. Then he asked me to write an essay about what rights I would get rid of and which ones I would keep if it was up to me."

Ellie laughed. "He made us have a discussion in class like that, but we didn't have to write about it. Or go to the library and read the whole Constitution! I can't believe you did so much extra, Joe!"

He grinned. "It was fun."

"Fun?!" She looked incredulous.

"Well, yeah! It made me feel like he really believed in me because he thought I could handle it. And truthfully, some of the stuff he gave me to do was more interesting than the work we were supposed to do for class." Joe remembered Mr. Hunter telling him he wished he could assign all his students the work he gave Joe, but that would require him to stray too far from the curriculum he was required to teach by the board of education.

"What happened after that?" Ellie asked. "You were this glutton for punishment coming by for extra work, even when you weren't in his class anymore?"

Joe laughed. "Kind of. I kept visiting him after school for the rest of junior high. Then because I didn't see him in the summers or when I got to high school, he started inviting me over his house now and then."

"You said he lives over by the art museum, right? It must be mansion, then, like all the other houses around there!"

"Yeah, it's huge, and it's just him and his wife. He has three kids, but they're all grown." Joe's initial visit to Mr. Hunter's house had astounded him. He had never realized that black people who weren't famous athletes or entertainers could live so well.

A horn honked and they looked up to see Mr. Hunter inside a navy blue station wagon, leaning toward the open front passenger window. "I assume you two want to sit in the back together," he said when they approached the car.

Joe grinned. "Yeah. Thanks." He got in and slid behind the driver's seat, and Ellie followed him.

Mr. Hunter, a plump man with a round face, a full head of gray hair and wire-rimmed glasses, turned around to face his passengers. "Hey there, young lady," he said to Ellie. "Good to see you again."

Ellie smiled. "Good to see you too, Mr. Hunter."

"How's your summer been?" he asked as he started driving again.

"Pretty good. I'm working one of those boring cleanup crew jobs, but I've been having fun hanging out with Joe."

"Now, don't knock those city jobs. They keep a lot of kids off the streets, and I think any type of summer job teaches young people responsibility. And doesn't a park or school look better after your crew works on it?"

Ellie nodded. "That's true."

Friday evening rush hour traffic was a little slow, so they had time to listen to Mr. Hunter tell them about his summer. He had led several workshops for teachers in training, visited his out-of-state grandchildren, and gone fishing. "Ever fished?" he asked Ellie.

"No," she giggled. "When would I have a chance to fish?"

"I got Joe to go with me once, a couple years ago," Mr. Hunter said. "He got a little squeamish trying to put the worms on the hook."

Ellie started cracking up and Joe, embarrassed, made a face. "Don't tell her that!"

Mr. Hunter chuckled. "Now I bet you wouldn't have any problems baiting a hook, would you, Ellie?"

"No, I wouldn't," she answered, grabbing Joe's hand and flashing him a teasing grin.

Joe wanted to redeem himself in the eyes of his girlfriend. "How come you didn't tell her I caught the biggest fish that day?"

"OK, I'll tell her. After Joe got over being scared of the worms, he caught the biggest fish."

"My hero," Ellie said, still laughing.

*********************

When they arrived at Mr. Hunter's home, Ellie was a little awed by the size of the red brick house with long white columns flanking the door and full length windows on its façade. The huge front lawn was bordered by gracefully trimmed shrubs and flowers in an array of colors. When Mr. Hunter walked ahead of them to open the front door, Ellie grabbed Joe's arm and whispered, "I thought teachers didn't make a lot of money. How can he live like this?"

Joe shrugged. "His wife is a psychiatrist and I think she earns a lot. And I guess you can do pretty good after you've been teaching a while."

Ellie laughed. She could see that. The man looked like he had been teaching forever.

Mr. Hunter's wife, Dr. Hunter, was as angular as her husband was round. Her hair, still dark or perhaps dyed, was styled in short curls that tapered to a point at the back of her neck. She looked intimidating until she smiled and gave first Joe and then Ellie a warm hug and kiss on the cheek. "Joe is like another son to us," she said. "It's nice to see him having a social life and not just studying and working all the time."

Ellie moved closer to Joe and placed her arm around his waist. "I'm glad I get to be his social life," she said. "He's very special."

Dr. Hunter smiled again. "He is indeed."

Joe had covered his eyes and was shaking his head. "Stop acting so embarrassed," Dr. Hunter chided. "You're among people who love you."

They sat down to a dinner of lasagna, salad and iced tea. The Hunters started talking about current events, and Ellie was surprised to see Joe participating in the conversation as much as the adults. She knew the basic stuff, like that Reagan was president, but beyond that, she didn't follow the news.

Mr. Hunter asked Ellie about her trip to North Carolina, something she hadn't wanted to talk about since it reminded her that she'd be separated from Joe. Upon hearing that her father was in the Army, he shared about his army days during the Korean War, and how he'd used the GI bill to attend college after his service was completed.

"Speaking of college," Dr. Hunter said to Joe, "Henry said that you and he are going to take a drive to Kenyon on Wednesday."

Joe nodded. "Yeah, he's got an interview set up for me and everything. I'm kind of nervous about it, though. I don't know if I have what it takes to get in there."

"Now, we've talked about this, Joe," Mr. Hunter said. "Admissions officers and guidance counselors recommend that students apply to at least one school you're sure to get into, several that are competitive for you, and at least one that's a stretch. Kenyon may be a stretch for you, but it's one that's worth making. I _know_ you can do this. I have total faith in you."

Joe smiled. "All right."

"You'll do fine," Dr. Hunter said. "Just talk to the interviewer about your goals and what you're learning in school, the same way you do with us."

"What about you, Ellie?" Mr. Hunter asked. "Where are you thinking about going to college?"

She hesitated. "I'm not."

"Why not? You should be. A college degree is essential in today's world."

Ellie shrugged. "I guess I never really thought about it much."

"How are your grades?"

Her face was getting hot. "They're okay."

She felt Joe's hand on her knee under the table. "Ellie's in a lot of activities at school. She's in the choir and on the cheerleading squad."

"Well, that's all well and good, but academics should be your priority. What are you planning to do instead of college?"

She looked down at her plate. "Go to cosmetology school," she mumbled.

Mr. Hunter shook his head. "Ellie, come on. You're selling yourself short. Do something that's going to use your brain! Too many young black kids think they're going to make it as a singer or in the NBA instead of valuing education the way they need to!"

Ellie had heard this lecture before, back when she was in Mr. Hunter's class, but never pointed directly at her. Her anger started rising. "I didn't say I wanted to be a singer or something like that! I know that's stupid! My mother's a hair dresser and she makes good money!"

"Ellie, I'm not criticizing your mother, I'm talking about you! You have more opportunities than your mother probably did!"

Dr. Hunter put her hand on her husband's arm. "Henry, that's enough."

Her intervention came too late. Ellie felt hot tears piercing her eyes. "I think I'd like to go home now," she said.

*********************

They drove back to Longbourn City in near silence. Joe put his arm around Ellie, who leaned against him. She hadn't said anything since announcing her desire to go home. "Mr. Hunter, can you drop us at Ellie's house?" he asked. "I want a chance to say goodbye to her."

"All right," the older man said quietly. "Just tell me which way to go."

When they arrived at Ellie's place, Mr. Hunter turned around. "Ellie, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. But I'm a _teacher. _That's my calling. And because of that, it really bothers me when I see young people not learning and achieving the way they could."

Ellie nodded but didn't answer.

Mr. Hunter exhaled. "I'll see you Wednesday, Joe. Remember, you can do this."

As soon as he drove off, Ellie turned away from Joe and started running up the steps of her building. "Ellie, wait!" he said. He grabbed her by the arm. "I'm not going to see you for another nine days. Please don't go in yet."

She turned and lashed out at him. "You let him talk about me like a dog and you just sat there and didn't say a word!"

Joe was bewildered. "Ellie, what was I supposed to say? You know what Mr. Hunter's like. And what did he say to you that wasn't true?"

"So you agree with him?" She sounded on the verge of tears. "You think I'm stupid, Joe?"

"Of course not! And Mr. Hunter doesn't think so, either. The reason why he said what he said was because he knows you're not!"

She turned her face away from him and didn't answer. The last thing Joe wanted was to fight with her the day before her trip. He put his arms around her and pressed his cheek against hers. "I love you, Ellie, and I think you're incredible," he said. "You know that, right?"

She lifted her head to look at him. "I think I'm upset because I'm going to miss you so much. Maybe if I wasn't, what Mr. Hunter said wouldn't have bothered me."

He held her chin up with his finger. "I'm going to miss you, too." He lowered his head and kissed her.

"You're going to write me, right?" she said. "And call, if you can?"

"Yeah, I have your father's address and phone number right here." Joe patted his pocket.

"I'll write you, too. And I'll call as soon as I get back on Sunday night. Were you able to get Labor Day off?"

"Yeah. You still want me to come over and meet you at ten?"

Ellie nodded, and then bit her bottom lip. "I don't want to say goodbye, Joe."

He shook his head. "I don't want to say goodbye to you, either."

"Then come here." She took his hand and turned, walking up the steps again. He followed and stepped into the entry way of her building. Ellie unlocked the second door to the inner hallway, which was a little less visible to the outside. From there she pulled him into a corner, where they could kiss deeply and tell each other of their love over and over again without an audience of anyone who happened to pass by on the street.

*********************

As always when Ellie and Mitch visited their father, their stepmother Florence planned a full week of activities for them and their younger siblings, including visits to amusement parks and petting zoos, movies, roller skating and go-cart racing. Then there was church for three hours on Sunday and the youth Bible study on Wednesday night that Florence insisted they go to. During their non-planned moments, Mitch loved the chance to give eight-year-old Damien pointers at basketball. Four-year-old Nicole followed Ellie around like a shadow, and Ellie enjoyed braiding her hair and even playing dolls with her.

What she didn't enjoy was that she didn't get any time with her father by herself. Florence was _always_ around. And Florence was nice, but…

But she missed her father. Even though she was spending time with him every day. It sometimes seemed as if he deliberately avoided being alone with the kids from his first marriage, and that his wife's hustle and bustle schedule for them was a welcome relief for him. And it hurt, it really hurt.

On top of that, she missed Joe terribly. Every time he'd tried to call, they had been out, and Florence wouldn't let her call back because she said she didn't want Ellie running up their long-distance bill. Joe's first letter arrived on Wednesday, and it was really short, just saying that work was very busy because of parents doing back-to-school shopping, and that he loved her and missed her. She appreciated reading those words, but wished he had written more. "Men aren't as expressive as women are, Ellie," Florence had said. "You have to get used to it."

On Thursday afternoon, they returned hot and exhausted from another day of fun. Mitch and Damien still had enough energy to go outside to play some more, and Nicole was napping. Ellie's father was busy on base, so Florence asked her to help her prepare dinner.

Florence cut up a chicken and floured and seasoned the pieces while Ellie began washing and chopping vegetables for salad. "I'm really glad we have this time to talk, Ellie," her stepmother said. "You're almost a woman now, and it's important for you to have another woman to talk to."

_Like my own mother doesn't exist,_ Ellie thought bitterly.

"Tell me more about Joe," Florence said.

Ellie smiled a little. She loved talking about Joe, even if it was with Florence. "He's really, really nice. He's very responsible. He's been working at the same job for almost a year, and he helps take care of his mother, who's sick. He's really smart, too. He's probably one of the best students at our school."

"Is he a Christian?"

"I guess so."

"You shouldn't have to guess about something like that, Ellie. Does he go to church, or read his Bible?"

As far as Ellie knew, the answer was no, but she didn't want to admit that to Florence. "I don't know."

Florence walked over to the sink to brush the flour off her hands and then wash them. "Ellie… it's important to know. You're young and you've never really dated before, so you might not realize some of the urges young men have. And the only thing keeping those urges under control is having a relationship with the Lord."

Ellie swallowed hard. She didn't like the way this conversation was going. Florence poured cooking oil into a pan and turned on the fire beneath it. "Has he tried to pressure you into doing things you shouldn't?"

"No." That was true. If anything, Ellie had been the one to initiate their physical relationship. And besides, she and Joe had only fooled around together a few times; it wasn't like they had gone all the way.

Florence started frying the chicken. "Well, you haven't been together that long. If he's not a Christian, sooner or later, he's going to. What are you going to do when that happens?"

_How am I supposed to answer that! _Ellie thought angrily. She was saved from having to respond by the appearance of her father, dressed in fatigue pants and a white T-shirt. At forty-three, Daddy was still very handsome and well-built, and his presence filled Ellie with pride. If a girl's first love is often her father, it had certainly been true for Ellie.

The corporal kissed his wife and then placed an arm around his daughter's shoulder, giving her a squeeze. "Smells good. When will supper be ready?"

"About a half an hour," Florence answered. "Ellie and I have been using this time to talk."

"Oh?"

"Yes, we were talking about her relationship with Joe. Apparently, he's not a Christian."

Ellie turned her head so that neither of them could see the look of fury that crossed her face. What right did Florence have to tell her father that?!

Corporal Jameson didn't answer, perhaps waiting for his wife to say more, which she was more than happy to do. "I've been trying to tell her that a young man who's not walking with the Lord will lead her astray."

Ellie couldn't read her father's expression. After a minute, he said, "Listen to her, Ellie. She's right. I was a young man once, and I know."

As much as she hated Florence's judgments, her father's were unbearable. "Daddy, you _don't_ know _him_! Joe's the nicest boy I know!"

"It's not about nice, baby. Like I said, I was young once. I know what he's thinking about!"

As if it was somehow different from what _she_ was thinking about. Still, she felt compelled to defend Joe, horrified that her father would think badly about him. "That's not true, Daddy. Joe's really kind, and smart, and hardworking. He's planning to go to college, and—"

"If he's going off to college next year, he'll probably try to use you and leave you behind."

Tears of rage filled Ellie's eyes. "No, that's what _you _did!" She turned and fled the room. She initially thought to run up to the room she shared with her little sister, but not wanting to wake her, she chose the bathroom instead, slamming the door and locking it behind her. She sat down on the floor and started sobbing. _I miss you, Joe,_ she thought. _I miss you so much!_

She heard a knock at the door. "It's me," Daddy said. "Can I come in and talk to you?"

She waited several minutes, but finally decided to open the door. Her father was still standing outside. He tried to put his arms around her, but she pulled away. He entered instead, lowered the toilet lid, and sat down.

"Do you feel like I left you behind?" he said softly.

"YES!" she said petulantly.

"You know, when your mother and I divorced, I didn't have a job. That was one of the problems between us. I was having trouble finding work, and she was supporting us. Then all of a sudden, I have this judge telling me I need to pay child support or I won't be able to see my kids anymore. I did the only thing I could think of that was legal to earn some money, and that was join the Army."

"But then you still couldn't see us, because you were so far away." A tear started running down Ellie's face again.

He hesitantly placed a hand on her arm, and this time she didn't withdraw from it. "I know. I miss you and Mitch all the time."

"You don't act like it. I never get to spend any time with you without Florence and the little kids around."

"Is that what you need?"

She nodded.

"All right, then, let's try to do that. Maybe I can take you and Mitch out to dinner tomorrow night, just the three of us, and then you and I can go out to breakfast alone on Saturday. How does that sound?"

Ellie wiped her face and tried to smile. "I'd like that."

The rest of the trip went better, especially the time Ellie spent one on one with her father. They didn't discuss Joe again until Sunday evening, while they waited to board their flight home. Daddy pulled her aside. "Ellie, about your boyfriend—"

"Daddy, please don't start!"

"Baby, let me say this. I _am_ worried about you. You're too young to be so serious about someone. Even if you mean something to him, if he's thinking about going off to college, he _will_ be leaving you behind. And I don't want you to get hurt."

She didn't answer. Her father embraced her. "I really love you, baby. Don't ever forget that."

She hugged him tightly, upset by his words but not wanting to let him go. "I really love you, too, Daddy."

*********************

Joe was sweating, both from nerves and the discomfort of wearing a long-sleeved shirt and tie in ninety degree weather. The last part was alleviated somewhat when he entered the air conditioned office at Kenyon to meet with the interviewer, a tall, forty-ish white man with thinning brown hair. The man introduced himself as Aaron McCall, one of the admissions officers.

Mr. McCall spent the first several minutes describing Kenyon College, its mission, goals and academic programs, before turning the discussion to Joe. "Generally when I do an interview, I have a student's application and transcript in front of me," he said. "Since I don't have yours yet, you'll need to supply me with the information I don't have. So why don't we start with you telling me about your grades and classes."

Joe told him that he had a 3.6 GPA, he was in his school's honors programs, history was his favorite class and science courses were his biggest struggles.

"Have you taken the SAT yet?"

"No. I took the PSAT last year, and I'm taking the ACT in October."

"That's fine; we accept the ACT, too. What were your PSAT scores?"*

"I got a 48 on the verbal and 44 on the math."

Mr. McCall nodded. "That's above average overall, but below average for what we generally accept here at Kenyon. However, you're a student in the Meryton public schools, and haven't had the test prep courses or some of the other advantages many of our applicants have had."

Was that okay or not? With ambiguous answers like that and Mr. McCall's straightforward expression and tone of voice, Joe couldn't tell.

Mr. McCall next asked him about his extracurricular activities, and Joe had to admit he currently wasn't involved in any except for the National Honor Society and the literary magazine, although he had once been on the newspaper staff and the service club. When the admissions officer asked why, Joe told him about having to work to help his family, so he had dropped any activities that required ongoing after school participation. "I'm also trying to save money because unless I get a full scholarship, I probably won't be able to afford to go to college."

The man gave another unsmiling, "deep in thought" nod that did little to ease Joe's tension. "Your mother's disability is an extenuating circumstance," he said.

_Enough to overlook my lack of extracurriculuars? _Joe wondered. Mr. McCall's monotone gave nothing away.

"What are you hoping to do in the future?" the man continued.

"I think I want to be a teacher."

"Why?"

"Because of Mr. Hunter, who I had for social studies in seventh grade. He was the first person to bring up the possibility of going to college to me. He really made me feel like he believed in me, that I could make it to college, and that I could do great things with my life. I guess you could say he changed my life, and I'd like to be able to do that for other kids."

Mr. McCall nodded again. He asked Joe a few more questions, and then inquired whether or not Mr. Hunter was with him. "Yeah, I mean yes, he's waiting for me in the lobby."

"Why don't you wait outside for a few minutes? Ask him to come in and see me."

After exchanging places with Joe, Mr. Hunter returned to the lobby about ten minutes later, smiling and clapping the anxious boy on the shoulder. "Let's get going and see the campus."

When they started walking through the college grounds, Joe took a deep breath and expressed his fear. "It was awful, wasn't it?"

Mr. Hunter laughed. "Not at all. He was very impressed with you."

Joe's eyes widened. "He didn't act like it!"

Mr. Hunter chuckled again. "He was probably busy thinking and evaluating everything you said, but believe me, he liked what he heard. And listen: you're a minority and first generation to college. They're looking for students like you."

Joe finally allowed himself to smile. "So I really did good?"

"You did an excellent job, just like I knew you would."

The rest of the afternoon was fun, as they toured the campus and ate at a small café located there. When they were in the car on the way home, however, Mr. Hunter switched from his lighthearted good humor to a serious tone. "Joe, I'd like to talk to you about Ellie."

Joe frowned. He'd forgotten how upset she had been that night at his old teacher's home. "Mr. Hunter… I hate to say this, but you made her feel like crap last Friday."

"You know that wasn't my intention, right? I care about all my students, past and present, and I want what's best for their lives."

"I know."

"That includes you, Joe."

"I know," he repeated.

"Yes, but you might not like what I'm about to say."

Joe looked at him warily.

"Are you serious about Ellie?"

"Yeah, I am," he replied, suddenly feeling defensive. "Why?"

"When I had her as a student, she was a nice, polite girl, but she spent most of her time in class passing notes to her friends. From what I saw on Friday evening, she hasn't really changed much since seventh grade."

"That's not a fair thing to say, Mr. Hunter. You don't know her like I do."

"You knew she wasn't planning to go to college?"

"Yeah, I knew."

"Joe, it was obvious from seeing you two together that you have strong feelings for one another. If you didn't, it probably wouldn't matter. But since you do, I feel like I have to say this. You and Ellie are going in two different directions."

"What do you mean?"

"You're too smart to play dumb. It's one thing to have a good time together over the summer, but what happens when school starts? When you're trying to study for your ACTs or finish your college applications, and she's just thinking about football games and parties?"

"Weren't you always telling me to be more social? Why is it a problem now that I am?"

"Yes, but I hoped that when you chose a girlfriend, you'd pick one who had the same goals you have!"

"It's not like I had all these girls who wanted me," Joe replied sullenly.

"And the one who does like you is beautiful and popular. I understand, Joe. If I was your age, it would be hard for me to turn down someone like Ellie, too. However, you may not believe this now, but when you get to college, you will meet many young women who are just as pretty and have just as much personality as Ellie. But they'll also be as ambitious and achievement-oriented at you are."

"But I love her," Joe protested.

"You _think_ you love her."

"How can you tell me what I feel or don't feel!"

"Joe, I'm saying this because I was seventeen once. When you fall in love for the first time, you think yours is the greatest love in the world and you'll never love anyone else that way. But you're wrong. There are a lot of other young women in this world, and you _will_ fall in love again. But if you and Ellie stay together, I can tell you how this is going to end up. She might start feeling threatened by your success. You might feel embarrassed by her lack of it. She might try to pull you down to her level. Either way, one or both of you will probably get very hurt. And the longer this relationship continues, the more painful it will be when it falls apart. You might want to think about ending it now before it gets that far."

Joe was so mad he couldn't talk for several minutes. When he finally spoke again, he said, "I appreciate everything you've done for me, Mr. Hunter, but you're not my mother or my father. _They_ don't tell me what to do with my life, and you can't either."

*********************

*** Author's note: The SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) and ACT (American College Test) are two standardized tests taken by American high school students in order to gain admission to universities. The PSAT (Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test) is a shorter version of the SAT, taken by students in 10****th**** and 11****th**** grade. It serves as a practice test for the SAT, and good scores on the PSAT make students candidates for college scholarships and university recruitment.**

**Any comments? I'm open to feedback, positive or negative!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

On Labor Day morning, Joe got dressed a little nervously. As much as he hated to admit it, Mr. Hunter's concerns about his relationship with Ellie had shaken him up a little. And Ellie hadn't called the night before like she'd promised. In fact, he hadn't been able to talk to her at all during the time she was gone. Still, he couldn't wait to see her.

Just as he was about to leave his home, the phone rang, and he eagerly ran to answer it, thinking it was Ellie. Instead, it was his manager, Mike. "Sorry to bother you on your day off, Joe," Mike said. "Carla had a family emergency and can't get here until the afternoon. Can you come in for a few hours?"

Joe hesitated. Mike was good about letting him have days off when he needed to study or take his mother to the doctor. He hated to tell him no. "I'm supposed to be meeting some people this morning."

"Can you call them and let them know you'll be a little late? It's just for a few hours. I'll get you out as quick as I can."

As much as he wanted to go see Ellie, Joe said yes. He wanted Mike to know he could rely on him. As soon as he hung up, he dialed his girlfriend's number. It rang five times before the answering machine kicked in, and he left her a message explaining what had happened. He grabbed his work clothes and folded them into his backpack, and then tried Ellie one more time. Still no answer. Had they left early, without waiting for him? If they had, it certainly didn't make him feel any better about his relationship with Ellie.

*********************

Mama had already loaded a cooler filled with ice and bottles of pop in the car, and she, Ellie and Mitch had been sitting on the steps outside their building, waiting for Joe since about nine-forty. Their apartment was so hot that it felt better to be outdoors. Joe was supposed to meet them at ten o'clock, and it was now almost a quarter after. "Ellie," her mother said, "we've got to get going soon. I promised your aunt we'd get there early to help set up."

"You didn't let me call him last night!" Ellie complained. "He might have forgotten about it or thought the cookout was canceled."

"Ellie, stop whining! I'm sorry your plane was delayed, but it was after eleven when we got home, which is too late to call anybody."

"Naw, Joe thought about your face and got scared!" Mitch joked. "He's prolly hiding under his bed now!"

Ellie glared at her brother. "Shut up, you little turd!"

"Both of you stop," their mother warned. "Ellie, you want to run back in and give him a call?"

Ellie nodded and flew into the house, dialing so fast she didn't notice the blinking answering machine. Joe's phone rang several times before a sleepy Haley picked up and mumbled hello. "I didn't mean to wake you up, Haley. Is Joe there?"

Haley didn't answer, and Ellie waited for a while, wondering if the woman had fallen asleep again or had forgotten about her. Finally, Joe's sister returned. "He's not here," she said abruptly, and hung up.

_Maybe he's on his way,_ she thought. She went downstairs and reported this to her mother. "We'll wait a little longer and then we really have to go, baby," Mama replied.

Ten minutes later, Ellie sat in the car with her mother and brother, trying to hold back her tears.

*********************

It was a very slow morning at Kmart, with only occasional customers running in to grab that extra bag of chips or bottle of pop or pack of film on their way to whatever parties or cookouts they were attending. The lulls between customers gave Joe lots of time to think about what might have happened with Ellie. Maybe the plans had changed. But if that was the case, why hadn't she called?

About one o'clock, Carla ran in and thanked him profusely for covering for her. Joe changed from his work clothes into shorts and a muscle shirt, since the temperature outside was sweltering. OK, what now? He decided to go to Ellie's house and see if she was there. There was no answer when he rang the bell.

"They left this morning," he heard someone say. He looked up to see an older woman watching from the window of the building adjacent to Ellie's. Joe had seen her before when he was visiting, so he was certain the woman knew exactly who he was looking for.

"Do you know where they went?" he asked. It was a long shot, but hey, it was a shot.

"Miz Jameson's brother-in-law's. I think they live over on 96th."

Joe told the woman thanks. If he wasn't so anxious, he'd have smiled. An old woman who knew everyone's business lived on his street, too.

Ninety-sixth street? OK, he could walk the two blocks over to Hertfordshire and take the bus to 96th. It might take a while, since the bus was running on a holiday schedule today. Then what? How would he ever find the right place? But he really, _really _had to see Ellie, so he had to try.

*********************

At the home of her father's brother Dave and his family, Ellie spent her first couple hours cleaning house and helping to peel potatoes for the potato salad. It gave her lots of time to think and to fume. She wasn't sure who she was angrier at, her mother for not letting her call Joe the night before, or Joe for not showing up that morning and not calling to let her know why. She thought of her father's words: _"He's going to use you and leave you behind." _ She hadn't wanted to believe that, but now she wasn't so sure. Even worse was her memory of Joe's words: _"What did Mr. Hunter say that wasn't true?" _ That, more than anything, made her afraid her father was right. Maybe while she was away, Joe had met someone else. Someone smarter than her, someone planning to go to college the way Joe was.

By early afternoon, the backyard was filled with relatives and friends, Morris Day and the Time was playing on the boom box, and everyone seemed to be having a good time except her. Ellie tried to eat a hotdog, but found she had no appetite. "Hey, Ellie, want to play some tonk?" her cousin Tracy, three years younger than Ellie, called out as she shuffled a deck. Ellie shook her head, and Tracy went to gather some other card players.

"Hey, why are you sitting here looking all lonely?" a young man said to her.

Ellie looked up. He was a cute guy of about eighteen or nineteen. She wondered where he had come from. Her cousins on her father's side were all younger than she was, so she never met any young people her age or older when she visited them. Of course, that also meant she didn't have to deal with protective older cousins checking all the boys at the door. Ironic: on one side of the family, she met all the cute boys but wasn't allowed to get close to them, and on the other side, she had no one putting up barriers but also never met anybody.

Not that it mattered anyway, since she supposedly had a boyfriend now, right? Wherever he was at the moment.

"You really are in a bad mood, huh?" the guy went on. "You can't even say hello?"

He was smiling at her, so she gave a small smile back. He took that as an invitation, and pulled up another folding chair to sit next to her. "I'm Patrick," he said.

"I'm Ellie."

"Nice to meet you, Ellie. A pretty name for a pretty girl."

She rolled her eyes. She hated her name, and didn't buy his flattery. She was curious about who Patrick was, however. "How do you know people here?"

"I was living with my mother in Detroit, but decided to come stay with my dad for a while. He lives next door."

"So you're Mr. Steven's son? When did you come to live here?"

As they started talking, Ellie felt her bad mood lifting. She wondered what it would have been like to have met Patrick before she started going with Joe.

*********************

It took about an hour for Joe to reach 96th, a street on the edge of Longbourn City that reflected the passage into slightly more prosperous areas of town. The street contained nearly identical postage stamp houses, each with a small front lawn and a three-foot wide tree lawn between the sidewalk and the road. As Joe started walking down the street, he smelled barbeque being grilled and heard laughter and music from the back of several homes.

Coming here was a bad idea. He couldn't just start walking into people's backyards to see if Ellie was there. He paused, but then decided that if he had come this far, he had to at least try to find her. He could stop at one house and ask if anyone knew Ellie's relatives. He wasn't sure if they were relatives on her mother or father's side, or if their last name was Jameson or something else. But it was the only thing he could think of to do.

He was in luck. At the first home where he stopped, the man at the grill gave him a friendly wave and invited him to join them. "I'm looking for the Jameson's," Joe told him.

"They're in the light blue house across the street. But their barbeque isn't as good as mine. You're missing out if you leave," the man said with a grin.

Joe smiled and thanked the man before crossing the street. The aromas and sounds coming from behind the blue house clearly indicated another cookout, so he took a deep breath and walked toward the backyard. "What's up, Joe!" Mitch called out as soon as he arrived. Joe exhaled as he waved at Mitch. He had reached the right place.

He started looking around for Ellie, and soon spotted her sitting next to some guy. His heart started pounding, and he told himself to calm down. That could be one of her cousins. He started walking over toward her, in time to hear the guy say, "Let me get your number so we can go out sometime."

Joe cleared his throat. Ellie looked up, a guilty expression crossing her face. "Patrick, this is my boyfriend, Joe," she said.

Patrick looked Joe up and down. "Sorry, man," he said, his tone sarcastic. "You shouldn't leave your lady alone like that." He stood slowly and walked away.

"Who _was_ that, Ellie?" Joe said angrily after Patrick was gone.

"Nobody."

"That's not what it looked like!"

"What do you care?" Ellie snapped back. "You didn't even bother to show up this morning!"

"You didn't even bother to call me last night!"

"My plane got in late!" Ellie shouted.

Joe suddenly noticed people looking at them. He lowered his voice. "Look, Ellie, can we go somewhere else and talk about this?"

She looked around and scowled. Sighing, she stood up. "Come on."

He followed Ellie into the house, entering by a backdoor that opened to the kitchen. They walked through the kitchen into a carpeted living room, where a plush sofa faced an entertainment center. Ellie sat on the sofa and indicated for him to join her. "So where _were_ you?" she accused once he was seated.

"I got called into work this morning. I called you to tell you but no one answered, so I left a message."

Ellie threw up her hands in frustration. "I _told_ my mother we needed to wait longer! We were outside on the steps waiting for you. That's why we didn't hear the phone."

Joe shook his head. "It wouldn't have mattered. I had to go straight to work. I'm sorry, Ellie. I really wanted to be here. I really missed you."

Her face softened. "I missed you, too. I'm sorry I didn't call last night. Our plane got in late, and my mother said it was too late to call you."

Joe touched her face. "It's okay. I'm just happy to see you again." He leaned toward her to kiss her, but the slamming of the screen door in the kitchen caused them both to jump.

"Ooh, you guys are busted!" Mitch said as he walked into the living room.

Ellie face registered annoyance. "What are you doing in here, Mitch?"

"I gotta pee."

"Well, hurry up!"

Mitch ran down the hall to the bathroom, and Joe put his arm around Ellie while they waited. She leaned against him, and he felt his heart fill up. Things were okay between them.

Mitch finished and returned the living room, grinning as if he'd hoped to catch them kissing again. "GOODBYE, MITCH!" Ellie said sharply.

"See ya!" he said, tapping his sister on the head before running out the back door.

As soon as he was gone, Joe and Ellie turned to each other once more, but were interrupted within seconds by the sound of the kitchen door again. This time it was a grown man who entered. "Hey, Ellie, is this the boyfriend we've been hearing about?" the man said.

Ellie gave Joe an apologetic smile. "Uncle Dave, this is Joe. Joe, this is my Uncle Dave."

"How you doin', young man," her uncle said as he entered the living room and shook Joe's hand. "Good to meet you."

Fortunately, her uncle left soon thereafter after grabbing an extra case of beer. Joe and Ellie both laughed after he was gone.

"You want to go someplace else where we can have some privacy?" Ellie said.

He nodded. "That's a good idea." Ellie stood and took his hand and led him past the living room to a front entry way, and then up a set of stairs. She opened a bedroom door on the second floor and entered, shutting it and pushing in the button lock after Joe followed her in.

"Ellie?" he said, looking around nervously.

"This is my cousin Tracy's room. It's okay," she said, as she put her arms around his neck.

They were soon kissing deeply, pressing their bodies together and running their hands over each other. They moved as one toward the bed and lay down in each other's arms to continue. Their post-separation longing and the intensity of emotions they had felt that day accelerated their desire, and before long they began removing clothing that got in the way.

If heavy petting felt good when they were clothed, it was blissful unclothed. As they continued to move together, Joe began to push for more until he felt Ellie tense up beneath him. He paused, his body screaming for him to continue even as his head began to send out warning signals. "Honey?" he asked.

"Do it," she said breathlessly, and spread her legs wider to make it easier. He responded, and Ellie suddenly made a "Ssss!" sound. "Ow, Joe, this hurts!" she cried out.

He looked at her, bewildered that something that felt so good to him could be painful to her. He caressed her face and kissed her softly, hoping she would relax. He saw Ellie's smile slowly return, so he started to move again. His feelings of ecstasy increased exponentially, and within minutes he dropped his body onto Ellie's, spent and satisfied.

"Get up, Joe!" she snapped.

He jumped a little, surprised at her angry tone.

"You're heavy, Joe. Get off me!"

Oh, his weight. He moved off her and Ellie rolled away, turning her back to him. The sight of her bare backside excited him again, and he moved against her.

"Stop it!" Ellie yelled. She sat up and grabbed a sheet to cover herself. He was shocked to see tears on her face and sense finally began to break through his fog of lust.

He suddenly noticed spots of blood on the bed where the sheet had been. _Dammit!_ Joe closed his eyes. He had just taken Ellie's virginity… on her cousin's bed. Without a condom. _You idiot! _he castigated himself. He reached for her. "Ellie, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!"

She pulled away from his touch. "Go home, Joe."

"Ellie…"

"I said, GO HOME!" She pulled her legs, still covered by the sheet, to her chest, and wrapped her arms around them. She lowered her head, and he could hear her crying. He wanted to comfort her, but didn't know how. With a heavy heart, he got dressed and left the room. He'd leave by the front door so no one would see him go.


	6. Chapter 6

**A minor observation about the previous chapter: when I wrote it, I was thinking back to life in the '80s, before we had cell phones and the Internet. Those really started becoming popular in the early to mid-90s. Before that, if you couldn't reach someone on a landline telephone, then it was very hard to reach them at all; hence some of the communication difficulties Joe and Ellie had in the last chapter.**

**Also, I want to give readers a heads-up about the angst in this story. At the beginning, I said this story contains its share of angst, but also happiness. I want to break that down by chapter:**

**Ch. 6-9 are pretty angsty, as Joe and Ellie come to terms with some very difficult news.**

**Ch. 10-14 are happier.**

**Ch. 15-17 are very emotional chapters.**

**Ch. 18 is pretty happy.**

**Ch. 19-20 include more angst.**

**In ch. 21, things get better, and ch. 22-25 and the epilogue are very happy chapters.**

**That being said, I hope you stick with me through the angst and that you'll find the happy ending worth it. Thanks for reading!**

************************

**Chapter 6**

"Elllllliiiiiiie!" she heard her named shouted from down the hall as she walked toward her homeroom. "Karima!!!" Ellie screamed back as she ran into her best friend's arms. With James as her last name, Karima had been in the same homeroom and had had adjacent lockers with Ellie since seventh grade, and they were on the cheerleading squad together. As she did most summers, Karima had spent her school vacation down south with her grandparents. The girls had exchanged a few letters, but this was the first time they had seen each other since the end of the previous school year.

"I have so much to tell you!" Karima said, gripping her arm. Ellie's heart suddenly caught in her throat. A week ago, she would have said the same thing. Now, she didn't know how she felt about everything that had transpired during the summer, let alone what to tell Karima about it.

"Hey, can you spend the weekend at my house? After the game on Friday?" Karima was asking.

"Yeah, I'll check with my mother," Ellie answered. Maybe by then, she'd have come up with some good stories to tell her friend. She wondered how Joe was doing. When she and her family arrived home from the cookout the night before, there were four messages from him: two from the morning, when he'd let her know about having to go into work, and two in the evening, in which he just said, "Call me." She'd been too upset to call him back, however.

That morning included the usual first day of school madness: receiving class schedules and trying to find the right rooms, signing up for extracurriculars, and attending a too-loud assembly in which the principal tried to communicate the goals and expectations she had for the students for the year. Ellie knew she wouldn't see Joe in any of her classes, but she kept looking for him in the auditorium. Karima noticed and asked if that was what she was doing.

Ellie shook her head. She had no idea what to say to Joe if she saw him, and didn't want to talk about it, even with her best friend. She was out of luck anyway, since she never caught sight of him in the crowd.

In the lunchroom, they were joined by Greg Lawrence and Jimmy Marshall, two of the running backs on Longbourn's football team.

"What's up, ladies!" Jimmy said. "You're both looking gorgeous."

Karima laughed, but Ellie had to force a smile. She wasn't in the mood for flirtatious banter.

"Long-BOURN, Ea-GLES!" Greg shouted. "We're gonna kick some FDR's butts on Friday!"

"Y'all better," said Karima. "We don't want to have to cheer for another losing season like we did last year!"

Jimmy placed his hand over his heart in a fake cardiac arrest. "How could you say that? You have to have faith in your boys!"

"Tell you what," Greg said, grinning. "We're so sure we're gonna win, we'll take you ladies out on Saturday night just to celebrate!"

"Do we get to pick the place?" Karima asked.

"Wherever you fine ladies want to go!" Jimmy answered. He lowered his voice and leaned in toward Ellie possessively. "You'll be my date, right, Ellie?"

Ellie frowned. How could she answer that? Last year, she'd have jumped at the chance. She looked up suddenly and finally spotted Joe, staring at her from a few tables away. The hurt expression on his face cut her to the heart, but her own emotions were in such turmoil, she didn't know how to deal with Joe's. And so she turned back to Jimmy.

*********************

Joe hurried away from the cafeteria, his heart aching and his eyes burning. He entered the boys' bathroom and stood before the urinal pretending to use it until he could control himself; it would be social death if anybody in school saw him crying.

He remembered his thoughts the first day he and Ellie had gone to the movies, when he wondered if her interest in him was just a joke. Now he knew that it was. Or at least, it was something she didn't care to continue as soon as the "real world" of school was back in session. Not when guys like Jimmy Marshall were around.

After he left the bathroom and walked toward his next class, other thoughts came to mind. He'd taken her virginity the day before. Maybe she hadn't been ready. And they hadn't used protection! She could be mad about that; if there were any consequences, she'd be the one paying them. Or maybe she had already paid a price. Someone in her family might have found out, and now she was in a lot of trouble.

He wanted to talk to her. He _had_ to talk to her. He'd call her that night. He hoped she'd be willing to talk to him on the phone, away from school.

Joe trudged through the rest of the day, miserable. He should have come back to school excited about having dated his first girlfriend over the summer and getting laid for the first time. He had bragging rights, now, right? But he had never felt worse in his life.

Joe called Ellie that night, and each night that week thereafter. She never accepted any of his calls. And thus he was reluctant to attend the home football game on Friday night against Longbourn's biggest rival, Franklin D. Roosevelt High School. As photographer and editor of the school newspaper, respectively, his friends Dwayne and Angie attended almost all the school events, and they really wanted Joe to join them. Joe loved football, but the game was the last place he wanted to be, since he knew he'd see Ellie there. Not wanting to raise his friends' suspicions however, he agreed to go, thinking that he could keep his eyes on the game and ignore the cheerleaders.

This, of course, turned out to be impossible. He kept glancing down at Ellie on the sidelines, her smiling face beautiful and her legs shapely beneath her short skirt. And her voice… even though she chanted and cheered in unison with the other girls on the squad, he was sure he could hear her voice above all the others.

During halftime, he left to go to the restroom in order to miss the extended cheerleading routine. When he returned to his seat, Angie was looking at him curiously. "Joe, I heard someone say that you and Ellie Jameson were talking during the summer."

He nodded.

Dwayne laughed. "Oh, no way! What would Ellie see in somebody like Joe?"

"Joe's cute, and he's nice, too!" Angie defended. "What I want to know is what he would see in _her_."

Joe felt his anger rise at Angie's implied insult of Ellie, but before he could say anything Dwayne started teasing her. "You think Joe's cute? When did you last get your eyes checked?"

"Shut up, Dwayne," Angie said. "So what happened, Joe?"

He scowled. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Just forget about her, then," she said. "You deserve better, anyway."

Both Angie and Mr. Hunter thought Ellie wasn't good enough for him, but he knew the truth. He wasn't good enough for her. He wasn't cool enough, or athletic enough, to be with her. He was just someone to fool around with during the boring days of summer.

He tried one last time to reach her, on Saturday morning before he had to go into work, one last futile attempt to convince himself that his relationship with Ellie meant something to her. Her mother, as always, answered. "She's not here," she told him.

"Oh… Can you tell her I called?"

Ms. Jameson sighed. "Joe, I think Ellie needs to be adult enough to tell you herself, but since she's not, I have to do it. I really think you need to stop calling. She tells me she doesn't want to talk to you, and she's obviously not calling you back. So please stop calling here. If Ellie wants to talk to you, she'll call _you._" She hung up.

Joe stared at the phone for a long time. He was at home, in his own room, and Pookie was still sleeping. Now he could let himself cry.

*********************

On Saturday evening, Ellie sat in Chili's listening to Jimmy and Greg boast about their win over Franklin Roosevelt the night before, and all she could think about was Joe—how much she loved talking to him, how a conversation with him was a real conversation. Sometimes they'd talked about silly stuff, but they always talked to _each other_. And listened. Jimmy, on the other hand, talked about himself, and expected her to fawn over him.

Karima seemed to have no problem fawning over Greg. Ellie didn't understand it. Karima had written her about Daniel, a neighbor of her grandparents who'd just finished his freshman year in college, whom she had gone out with during the summer. And last night, Karima had confessed that she'd lost her virginity to him. She seemed so excited about it.

Ellie didn't know why she didn't feel the same way. She had always thought her first time would be really special, especially if it was with someone she loved as much as Joe. Yet it wasn't. It was painful, not pleasurable, and over before she knew it. And she would never have the chance to have her first time again. She had no words to describe the profound sorrow and disappointment she felt. Joe had apologized—he knew she hadn't been happy—but she couldn't explain it to him. All she knew was that when she turned away from him, a thought entered her head that she couldn't shake: "My magical summer romance is over."

She had tried to act as casual about it as Karima. She told her friend that she'd lost her virginity, too, and they'd giggled together about being "real women" now. Karima told Ellie she hoped that Daniel would write her once he arrived back at college, so it sounded like she wanted their relationship to continue. But if that was the case, you wouldn't know it by the way she was hanging all over Greg tonight.

*********************

About two weeks later, Ellie was walking home from cheerleading practice with Karima when her friend started talking about Greg again. Annoyed, Ellie asked, "What about Daniel?"

Karima stopped and stared at her. "I wrote him a couple of letters. He hasn't written me back yet."

"What are you going to do when he does?"

"I don't know that he's going to!" Karima shouted. "Maybe he thinks of me as just some high school girl he had a thing with over the summer," she added sadly.

Ellie didn't know what to say. Her best friend was hurting a lot more than she had let on.

"What about you?" Karima asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I see you looking over at Joe every day in the cafeteria or when we pass him in the hallway. You miss him, don't you?"

Ellie nodded as her eyes filled with tears.

"Then do something! Daniel's in Atlanta and there's not much I can do about it. But Joe's right here."

_Karima is right,_ Ellie thought. She picked up the phone to call Joe that night, and then chickened out. _Tomorrow_, she decided. She'd talk to him in person.

She didn't see Joe until lunchtime the next day. He was sitting, as usual, with his friends several tables away from where she ate with other members of the cheerleading squad and football team. She thought about going over to join him—but what if he didn't want to talk to her? She'd embarrass herself in front of everyone. Instead, she waited until the bell rang in order to approach Joe in the commotion of students on their way to their next classes.

"Hi," she said, reaching out to touch his arm.

Joe briefly looked at her and then hurried past, leaving her alone.

It was all Ellie could do to make it through the day without crying. Her stomach was bothering her, too, and she was tempted to excuse herself from cheerleading practice. She decided to go anyway, and was glad she did. The physical activity helped her to feel a little better and allowed her to forget Joe for a while.

That evening, she tried to write him a letter. After an hour, she had started and failed at several attempts to finish her missive. While silent tears ran down her face, Ellie felt as though she truly saw who she was for the first time. She had always considered herself a nice, fun and caring person. The crumpled sheets of paper on the floor revealed a different story.

She was selfish, cruel and a coward. She should have the courage to talk to Joe face to face, despite his rebuff of her today. She should be able to offer an explanation for her behavior. She should never have treated him that way in the first place! She had pulled away from the kindest boy she'd ever known, without letting him know why. That's because she didn't have a good reason for why. She deserved the way Joe had dogged her earlier that day.

Ellie lay down on her bed and pressed her hands against her queasy belly, breathing hard. This was the real her, not the happy-go-lucky girl she presented to the world. No wonder she felt so sick.

*********************

Joe stood at his locker at the end of the school day one afternoon in early October, slowly exchanging some of the textbooks in his backpack for the ones he'd need to do his homework. His movements were sluggish, the way they'd been since Ellie had tried to talk to him in the cafeteria a week ago. He should have stopped. When the bell rang that day, he realized he'd left his math book, with his completed assignment inside, in his locker. He mind was on rushing back to get it so he wouldn't be late for class. That was why he'd kept going.

He wondered what Ellie must have felt—like he didn't care or didn't want to talk to her, neither of which was true. But Ms. Jameson had already warned him about calling, so he kept thinking Ellie would phone him instead, and she didn't. He tried to tell himself it must not have been important, or else she would have. But he also wondered if she had felt rejected by him in that moment. He understood the feeling, and wasn't vengeful enough to want her to share it.

So now he added guilt to all the other misery he felt, and he hated it. Why couldn't he just accept what Mr. Hunter had said: that he and Ellie were going in two different directions? She had obviously already realized it. Mr. Hunter had said he'd forget about Ellie when he met other girls at college. But Joe couldn't imagine loving anyone else the way he loved her.

"Joe, can I talk to you?" He was so startled by Ellie's sudden appearance next to him that he couldn't speak. He nodded.

She looked down at the floor. Joe waited, a little impatiently, for her to say something else. She finally stepped closer to him and mumbled something. He said, "What?" and bent his head to hear her better.

"Joe," she whispered, "I think I'm pregnant."


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Joe turned to face his locker again, unable to look at Ellie. He wanted to tell himself that he hadn't heard her right. She slipped her hand into his and he understood what it meant; not so much a gesture of affection as a need to hold on to _something._

He gripped her hand. He needed to hold something, too. "Are you sure, Ellie?" he asked softly. Then he caught his breath. Saying her name out loud brought back all the tenderness he'd felt for her a month ago.

"No, but my period is two weeks late."

He couldn't handle this now. He had to be at work in twenty minutes, and he had no frigging clue what to do. He didn't want to abandon her, however. "Ellie, I have to leave. I have to go to work. But I have a break at six. Can you meet me there?"

She nodded. Joe shut his locker and released her hand in order to reattach his lock. It was very difficult to walk away. He had never seen Ellie look so forlorn.

*********************

Ellie went to cheerleading practice, again appreciating the physical reprieve from her anxiety and what she was now pretty sure was pregnancy-related nausea. As long as she kept her mind focused on the cheers and routines, she could forget everything else for a while.

After practice, she caught the bus to Kmart, arriving about ten minutes of six. Joe, cashiering at one of the registers, noticed her walk in and waved her over. After ringing up a customer, he reached under the conveyer belt and pulled out a plastic bag, which he handed to her. "It says it takes about fifteen minutes," he said. "I'll meet you outside the bathroom when you're done."

Ellie walked away and entered the women's restroom, where she pulled a home pregnancy test out of the bag. She entered a stall so she could follow the instructions. When she finished, she placed the cup on the sanitary napkin disposal box and stood there to wait for what felt like the longest fifteen minutes of her life. The stick was blue when she pulled it out. She wanted to curl up in a ball on the floor and cry her eyes out, but she couldn't. Not only was the floor dirty and gross, but Joe was waiting for her. Joe, who had bought her this kit so she would know for sure. Who hadn't once suggested that the baby might not be his. She was such a fool!

She dumped her pee into the toilet and flushed, disposed of the cup and washed her hands before leaving. Joe was standing outside the restroom as he'd promised. He must have seen the distress on her face and realized what it meant, because he put his arms around her. It took everything in her to not start bawling in public. For now, she allowed herself to gather strength from his embrace.

After a few minutes, she pulled back. "Can we sit down somewhere and talk?"

He nodded and took her hand, leading her to the food stand area. A wave of nausea passed over her. "Not there, Joe. The smell…"

He paused, scanning the store. "Hardware," he said. "It's not crowded."

He led her to the tools section and helped her sit on one of the stools used to reach the top shelves. She still felt sick, even as her stomach growled. "Can you do me another favor?" she asked. "Can you buy me some pretzels and ginger ale?"

He nodded and disappeared, returning in a few minutes with the snack she requested—and his sister. "I called her when you were in the bathroom," he said. "I hope that's okay."

Ellie wasn't sure how she felt about Haley's presence. She slowly opened the pop bottle and the pretzel bag in order to get something inside her before she answered. "Did you tell her?"

"Not yet."

Ellie placed the ginger ale on the floor and reached into her jacket pocket for the blue stick, which she handed to Haley. "Oh boy," Haley said quietly, furrowing her brows.

Joe looked at both young women apologetically. "My break is about to end. Haley, can you drive Ellie to wherever she needs to go?"

"Sure," his sister answered. She held out a hand to help Ellie up. Ellie turned to Joe, wanting to somehow communicate her gratitude to him. She decided to hug him again, whispering, "I'll see you tomorrow," in his ear. He pressed her close to him and kissed her cheek before releasing her.

She walked with Haley to a clean but somewhat beat-up white van parked near the store. "Is this what you carry your cleaning supplies in?"

"Yeah, this is it," Haley said as she started the engine. "It's not much, but it does what it needs to do. Where're we going?"

Ellie gave her home address and directions. After pulling into traffic, Joe's sister asked, "Are you planning to have this baby?"

Ellie stared at her, startled. "Of course!"

"And are you planning to keep it?"

"Yes!" she replied angrily. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Because you're seventeen. Do you even know how to take care of a child?"

"I babysit a lot," Ellie said defensively.

"When you babysit, you give the kid back after a few hours. Your own baby is 24-7. Forget about going to parties and dances like you do now. Are you prepared for that?"

Ellie didn't answer, her anger burning. Why was any of this Haley's business?

"When are you going to tell your mother?"

Her mother. Ellie closed her eyes. "I… I don't know. I guess I'll have to tell her eventually."

Haley laughed sharply. "Girl, you need to tell her as soon as possible!"

Ellie started crying. "I can't. She's going to kill me!"

"Cut the waterworks, Ellie! If you're going to be a parent, you need to grow up real fast!"

Ellie stopped immediately, wiping her face with her hands. She _hated_ this girl.

"Has your mother ever been violent with you?" Haley asked more gently.

"No."

"Then she's not going to kill you. She might be upset, but like I said, you need to grow up and take your lumps."

Ellie swallowed hard. "Why do I need to tell her right away?"

"Because if you want this baby to be healthy, you need prenatal care. I assume you're covered under whatever insurance your mother has, so she needs to arrange for you to see a doctor."

Ellie knew she was right, but the thought of telling her mother filled her with dread. She swallowed again. She didn't want to vomit in Haley's van.

They pulled up in front of Ellie's building and Haley cut the engine. Ellie didn't move, unwilling to go in and face her mother.

"You don't need to tell her tonight, just in the next few days," Haley said softly. "Why don't you wait until you talk to Joe, so you're in this together?"

Ellie nodded.

"What happened between you and my brother, anyway?"

Her head snapped in Haley's direction. "I don't know."

"That's not good enough. You two are going to have a baby. I know Joe is totally confused and hurt, because you stopped calling and taking his calls. Why?"

Ellie inhaled and exhaled several times.

"When were y'all last together?"

"Labor Day."

"What happened on Labor Day?"

Ellie laughed ruefully and pointed to her abdomen. "This happened."

"How do you know?"

"Because that was the first… the only time."

Haley raised her eyebrows, her expression surprised. "Damn. I guess that's why they always say it only takes once."

Ellie shut her eyes again to hold the tears back. Yeah. Just once. How could they have been so stupid?!

"I assume you didn't plan it and didn't use any birth control."

Ellie nodded.

"So what then? Was it buyer's remorse after that?"

Ellie hadn't heard the expression, but figured out what it meant. "I guess you could say that. I expected it to be… better than it was."

Haley laughed a little. "It gets better with practice." She sighed. "So you had sex, you weren't planning to, and it wasn't as good as you hoped it would be. And just like that, you decide to break up? I mean, you and Joe seemed pretty tight before that."

Ellie rubbed the back of her neck. "I was already kind of mad at him."

"Why?"

She was no longer pissed at Haley's interrogation. She _needed _to talk about this, she realized. "'Cause everything went wrong that day. I couldn't call Joe on Sunday night like I said I would because my plane got in too late. And he got called in to work on Monday morning when he was supposed to meet me to go over to my aunt and uncle's house. He tried to call me to let me know, but we were outside waiting and didn't hear the phone."

"You were mad at him for not showing up, then."

She nodded. "But it was so stupid! He came later and explained what happened, and I don't even know how he got there, because he didn't know where my uncle lived. I _should_ have just been happy that he cared enough to do whatever it took to get there, but I wasn't. And then we went to my cousin's room to talk, and to kind of, I guess, make up."

Haley nodded sympathetically. "You two discovered 'make up sex.' One of the problems with that is you don't always resolve whatever it was you were fighting about."

Ellie nodded again.

"So what was it? That you were fighting about?"

Ellie made herself think. Why was she so mad that day? "Because… because, when he didn't show up, I thought… they were right."

"Who?"

Her eyes welled up again. "My father and stepmother, when I was in North Carolina."

"What did they say?"

She exhaled. "That Joe wasn't good for me. My stepmother didn't really like the fact that he doesn't go to church, and they both said he would lead me astray."

"Did you agree with them?" Haley said sharply.

"No!" Seeing Haley's skeptical look, Ellie repeated herself. "No, Haley, I didn't! They don't know Joe! I told them they were wrong about him!"

Haley's face softened a little, and she waited.

"Then…" Ellie went on, "then… they started talking about the fact that Joe wants to go to college, and I don't. And my father said that he would just use me and leave me behind."

They were both quiet for a minute after that. Finally, Haley spoke. "You believed that part, didn't you?"

"Not at first. But I guess it was in the back of my mind, because when he didn't show up—"

"Why, Ellie?" Haley said abruptly. "Why would you believe that? My brother is crazy about you! He would never use a girl and leave her behind."

This time Ellie couldn't hold back her tears. "Because he's really smart, and I'm not."

"You are _far_ from dumb, Ellie."

"But I'm not smart, like school smart, the way he is. And… it sounded true. Like he'd leave me, because I'd just hold him back."

"Is that why you got pregnant?"

Ellie felt a surge of anger, disrupting the camaraderie she'd been developing with Joe's sister. "You think I did this on purpose?!"

"Did you?"

"No!! Why would I do that? I didn't want to have a baby this young!"

Haley tugged on a few of her dreadlocks. "All right, Ellie, I was out of line with that. You know, I'm a real loyal person. If I'm your friend, I'm usually your friend for life. I like you, Ellie, and right now, I'm in your corner. But I don't like seeing my brother get hurt. If you hurt him again, I'll hurt _you_."

Ellie nodded. She wanted to say she'd never hurt Joe again, but she didn't have enough faith in herself to make that promise. Instead, she reached for the door handle.

"I finished your painting, by the way."

Ellie turned back to the other woman, puzzled.

"Your painting of Joe. The one you asked for. I'll give it to him to give to you."

Ellie nodded, her heart almost breaking. "Thanks, Haley," she replied. "For everything."


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Joe woke up the next morning feeling both excited and foolish. He had always scorned the young men he knew who bragged about getting girls pregnant. Big whoop. He recalled the saying, "Anybody can make a baby. It takes a man to be a father." No truer words were spoken, in his opinion. Yet for some stupid reason, he couldn't repress the sense of pride he felt in his own virility.

He tried to sober himself by thinking about what the pregnancy meant for Ellie, for him, for them. For them. Was there even a "them"? Would she consult him on what she planned to do? If she had the baby, would she let him be a part of the child's life?

He never thought he'd be in this situation. He'd always taken for granted that he'd have kids someday, but it would be after college, after establishing a decent career, after getting married. And he assumed he'd be smart enough to prevent any unwanted pregnancies in the meantime.

He wasn't so smart after all. Getting a girl, who was no longer even his girlfriend, knocked up at seventeen, and being tempted to boast about it like the dumb cats on the street corner. He was no better than any of them.

*********************

"Hi, Joe!" Ellie greeted him with a bright smile and cheerful voice shortly after he arrived at school. He was amazed as always at her ability to rally her spirits even when something was troubling her.

"Hi," he responded, feeling the same uncertainty he'd experienced around her on their first date.

"Can we have lunch together today?"

He said yes and she smiled again, rising on her toes to give him a quick kiss on the lips before running off.

Joe stood there for several seconds, wondering what her kiss meant. Did she still love him? Or was it just because she was pregnant, so now she needed him? If the former, was he stupid and desperate enough to take her back as if nothing had happened? And if the latter, would he be wrong not to?

"Yo, did Ellie just kiss you?" Dwayne walked up to him and said. When Joe nodded, his friend started laughing. "You mean were telling the truth when you said you had something going on with her!"

"You thought I was lying?"

Dwayne shrugged. "Hey, it was hard to believe, especially since you weren't together after we got back to school." He lowered his voice. "So… did you get laid?"

A month ago, if things hadn't gone so wrong between him and Ellie, would he have boasted to Dwayne? Joe couldn't be sure, but now he knew there was no way. "None of your business," he snapped, before turning to walk off to class.

His friend ran to catch up to him. "I guess that means the answer's 'no'," he said, laughing.

Whatever. Let Dwayne think what he wanted to.

*********************

As she walked to the lunchroom with Karima, Ellie told her she wanted to eat with Joe so they could try to work things out. "I'm going to sit away from everybody else. Is that okay?"

Karima smiled and squeezed her arm. "That's so cool! Make sure you tell me everything later."

Tell her everything. She wouldn't—not yet, anyway. She wasn't ready. There were always about a half dozen girls at school who got pregnant each year, so it shouldn't have been a big deal. But it was to Ellie. She never thought she'd be one of them.

She stood in the line for hot lunches. Meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Not the worst stuff they served, but still, ugh. She grabbed a pack of Oreos and an apple juice before leaving the line to look around for Joe. Karima, behind her, touched her arm and pointed to him entering the cafeteria. Ellie walked over and said hello.

"Hi," he replied. He seemed nervous. She remembered his shyness early in their relationship, but he'd overcome it quickly enough. Its return made her sad, because she knew she was to blame for it.

"Do you need to get in line?" she asked.

"No, I brought my lunch."

She pointed to an empty table in the corner, and they sat down together. "Hey, Ellie!" she heard Yvonne shout. She turned to see Karima pulling the other girl aside, and appreciated her friend helping her out.

She took the paper off her margarine pat and applied it to the mashed potatoes. They were at least edible. She had no plans to touch the meatloaf, not if she wanted to keep her stomach contents that afternoon. She'd already thrown up breakfast.

From his backpack, Joe pulled out a bottle of Sprite and a brown sack containing a sandwich and bag of Doritos. They both ate their lunches in silence, and continued to sit quietly for several minutes afterward, until Ellie concluded that if they were going to talk at all, she had to start.

"Joe." She took a deep breath. She was _going _to grow up, for this baby and for him. "I'm sorry."

Joe nodded, but didn't answer.

Ellie swallowed. "I really miss you."

"Even with Jimmy Marshall around?" The hurt in his voice and his eyes was obvious.

She bit her lip and shook her head. "I _don't _like him, Joe. At all." She wondered if she should admit she'd gone out with Jimmy, but decided against it. Nothing had happened. Jimmy had been pissed because she wouldn't even let him kiss her.

Joe still wasn't speaking, so she went on. "I know I hurt you, Joe. I didn't mean to. It's just… everything went so wrong that day…"

"Yeah, we really fucked up, didn't we?" Joe said bitterly.

"In more ways than one."

Unexpectedly, Joe smiled. Ellie wanted to smile back but found tears in her eyes instead. "I really am sorry, Joe. And I really have missed you."

Joe continued to sit silently for another minute, and she grew anxious, wondering what he was thinking. But she would take her lumps, just like Haley said. Any harsh words he had for her, she'd accept. She just hoped he wouldn't reject her altogether; that would crush her.

Finally, Joe reached for one of her hands, while placing his other hand on her cheek. She tilted her head to rest in his palm, relieved and grateful for the gesture and the gentle expression on his face. "Me, too, Ellie," he said. "I miss you, and I'm sorry."

"You didn't do anything," she said.

"Yeah, I did. I shouldn't have let it happen without a condom. I should have talked to you more first, to be sure you were ready—"

"Joe, I didn't say no. I remember telling you to go ahead and do it."

He looked at her, seemed to accept her words, and nodded. "And a couple of weeks ago, I should have stopped when you tried to talk to me in the cafeteria."

"You were mad at me. I understand."

"No, I wasn't even mad! I was just trying to get to my locker before class."

She shrugged, although her eyes were still filled with tears. "It's okay. It doesn't matter anymore. We're together again, and that's what counts."

Joe lowered his hand from her face in order to clasp both her hands in his own. He then rested her forehead against hers. "So we really are back together?"

"Let me show you." She lifted her chin to kiss him and felt him pull back, maybe out of concern about where they were. She drew closer. "Joe, I want anyone who's looking to see me kiss you. I want them to know that you're mine and I'm yours."

He smiled again, and leaned forward for a lingering, closed-mouth kiss, but one that communicated so much.

The bell rang. Lunchtime was only twenty minutes long. Joe and Ellie stood and began to walk out of the lunchroom together, holding hands. Ellie felt a sense of security for the first time in weeks, even though they hadn't talked about the one topic hanging over both their heads.

They hadn't discussed the baby.

*********************

"So what's he got that I don't?" Jimmy grumbled when Ellie reached the spot where the rest of her squad members were warming up on the sidelines. Not only had Jimmy seen them in the cafeteria earlier that day, he'd been watching when Joe walked Ellie down to her cheerleading practice after school and she'd kissed him goodbye.

She sighed. She didn't want to have to deal with Jimmy's ego. "Nothing. We were going together in the summer and decided to make up. That's all."

"Naw, she just misses all them discounts at Kmart!" Yvonne piped up from the grass where she was stretching, making a few of the other cheerleaders laugh. Ellie grimaced. She and Yvonne hadn't really been friends since the other girl found out she'd started dating Joe during the summer.

"No, Ellie wants someone who'll treat her like a gentleman!" Karima quipped back. Ellie smiled. Her best friend had her back.

Jimmy moved closer to Ellie until he was almost breathing down her neck. "I can be a gentleman, too," he whispered. "And I bet you he can't do for you what I can do!"

She rolled her eyes. "You don't know what he can do for me!" she snapped back with attitude. Fortunately, at that point, the football coach yelled, "Marshall! Get over here!" Jimmy stuck out his bottom lip in a childish pout and ran off to join his team in the middle of the field.

Ellie shook her head. Once more, she was _so_ glad she had ended up with Joe instead of someone like Jimmy!

*********************

Joe was in the Jameson kitchen cooking dinner when Ellie's mother arrived home. "Hi, Joe," she said, her expression perplexed. "Why are you in here cooking instead of my kids?"

"Ellie wasn't feeling well," he answered, hoping he wasn't revealing too much. The smell and sight of raw ground turkey had nauseated her, and she'd gone to lie down.

"Well, that's nice of you. Especially since my son is out there playing his Atari, instead of helping you."

Joe shrugged. "I don't mind. I'm used to cooking."

Ms. Jameson smiled and patted his shoulder. He wondered how long she'd be this friendly. Today was Joe's day off from work and Ellie had asked him to come home with her. Instead of engaging him in her usual chatter, Ellie had been strangely silent on the bus, resting her head against his shoulder. It was only once they arrived at her family's apartment that she told Joe she wanted him with her when she told her mother. Joe nodded, wondering how they were supposed to tell her mother anything when _they _hadn't even talked about it.

Just before going to her room to rest, Ellie took his hand. "I'm keeping this baby, Joe. I never thought it would happen like this, but I always knew that if it did, I'd keep the baby."

He nodded again, his already tense emotions roiling now that the subject was on the table. He took a deep breath. "And I always knew that if I ever had a kid, I'd take care of it."

Ellie put her arms around him and as he held her, he knew, as scared as he was, that the commitment he'd just made to her was the right thing to do.

Now, though… He watched Ms. Jameson in the living room talking to Mitch. She was reprimanding him about something, and in her stern expression, Joe suddenly had a vision of Ripley going after the alien. "My mama is like that," Ellie had said. The alien was female, too. Wasn't she just trying to protect her eggs from all the humans? There was nothing fiercer than a mother defending her child. So what would Ms. Jameson do to him?

Ellie came out of her room to join them for dinner, which was elbow macaroni and meat sauce. After dinner, Joe watched a now familiar transformation on Ellie's ashen face as she mustered her courage to speak up. "Mama, I need to talk to you about something."

It took only a split second for the subject matter to register with Ellie's mother. "Oh, Lordy," she said. She turned to her son, who had been instructed to clear the table. "Mitch! Go to your room!"

The young boy grinned. "You mean I don't have to do the dishes! Yes!" He ran back into the living room and grabbed his joystick.

"I said your room, Mitch!" his mother shouted.

"Aw, man! Why?" he protested.

"Because I said so! Don't argue with me!"

Mitch heard the seriousness in his mother's voice and left the room without further complaint. As soon as he was gone, Ms. Jameson glared at her daughter. "You're pregnant, aren't you?"

Ellie nodded, and Ms. Jameson turned her angry stare toward Joe. "So that's why you're here?"

"Ellie didn't do this by herself," he answered softly.

Ms. Jameson pursed her lips. "You got that right. Why don't you go home now, so I can deal my daughter?"

Joe looked at Ellie, whose expression was startled. "No! I need him!" she cried.

Joe clasped her hand. "Ellie wants me to stay," he said, hoping he sounded non-confrontational.

"No, you have to go!" Ms. Jameson's voice was icy. "I appreciate you being willing to take some responsibility, but you shouldn't have been screwing my daughter in the first place. Now get the hell out of my house!"

He looked at Ellie's face, now tearful, and desperately wanted to be able to help her. But he couldn't fight her mother on this. He squeezed Ellie's hand again, and then quickly kissed her on the cheek, whispering, "I love you." He stood and walked to the door, stopping to pick up his backpack. He paused and turned back to glance at Ellie before leaving, hoping she didn't feel like he was deserting her. His stomach churned the entire way home.

*********************

"What the hell were you thinking, girl?" Mama said as soon as Joe left. "No, don't answer that. You weren't thinking! How many times have we talked about this!"

Ellie couldn't look at her. "I'm sorry, Mama."

"Sorry don't cut it, Ellie! You are _seventeen! _That is too damn young to have a baby! You've always been such a good girl, and I thought I could trust you! Hell, I thought I could trust Joe! He seemed like such a nice kid!"

"He is, Mama! It just happened once!"

Mrs. Jameson laughed bitterly. "Once is all it takes, right? And you _knew _that! How many times have we talked about you keeping your legs closed and using your common sense! Ellie!" She rose abruptly to grab the cordless phone. "Call your father."

Ellie's voice quaked. "Oh, please, Mama, don't make me call him."

"If you think you're old enough to have sex, then you're old enough to deal with the consequences. Now CALL HIM!"

With a trembling hand, Ellie reached for the phone and punched in her father's number. After answering, Florence went to summon her husband.

"Hi, sweetheart, how are you?" Daddy said when he picked up.

"Hi, Daddy. I—" She was trying so hard not to cry, and was failing.

"Are you okay, baby? What's the matter?"

Ellie took a deep breath. "Daddy, I'm… I'm pregnant," she said, her voice almost a whisper.

Her father was silent for what felt like an eternity, but was probably no more than twenty seconds. "Ellie, did you just say you're pregnant?"

Ellie choked on her sob. "Y-yes," she stuttered.

"So you lied when you were down here? Florence said she asked you point blank if you were sleeping with that boy, and you said no."

"Daddy—"

Her father exploded. "Ellie, I gave you my trust! I dropped the whole discussion about that boy because I thought you would do the right thing! And now I find out you've been whoring around and then lying about it!"

Ellie started bawling. Hearing these words from the man whose opinion meant the most to her was devastating.

"Give me the phone, Ellie," Mama said. Ellie was frozen in anguish, so her mother took the phone from her hand.

"Alvin, you need to calm down! I don't know what you said, but you should see Ellie's face right now! ... I know she messed up, you don't need to tell me that! ... Don't act like this is my fault, I've talked to her plenty of times… That is NOT true! I know him and you don't. He's a _good _kid! ... Because kids sometimes screw up, even the good ones! Don't forget that I know you, Alvin! I know the mistakes you made when you were young! … Yes, I know full well this mistake has lasting consequences …. All right, Alvin, enough. I'm the one here with her, so I'm the one who will be dealing with this. I'm hanging up now. Don't call back until you can talk to me and your daughter in a civil manner!"

Mama hung up the phone and held out her arms to Ellie. She ran to her mother, sobbing. "It's okay, baby, it's okay," her mother said as she embraced her and stroked her hair. "We'll get through this together, I promise you."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

On Sunday afternoon two weeks later, Joe walked to Angie's place in order to study for the upcoming ACT test with her and Dwayne. Like almost everything else these days, this activity seemed unreal. Whatever he had worried about previously, such as getting a good score on a college entrance exam, didn't seem to matter much anymore. The thought of the baby terrified him. It meant he and Ellie would be tied together, not just as boyfriend and girlfriend, but with a future he hadn't anticipated. He could no longer be an ordinary high school kid. He had to be something more, and he wasn't sure he was ready.

He hadn't told Angie and Dwayne about the pregnancy, because there was no way they'd be able to understand. His relationship with Ellie had already created a distance between him and his friends. When he'd arrived at his pre-calculus class the afternoon he and Ellie had made up, Angie had shaken her head at him disapprovingly. "You and Ellie Jameson," she'd said. "Why?"

"Cause she's a stone fox, that's why!" Dwayne answered with a grin as he dropped his lanky frame into his desk seat.

"Yeah, but she's an airhead. I didn't think you were that shallow, Joe."

Joe bit the inside of his jaw. "She's not an airhead. And you don't really know her, Angie, so why don't you keep your opinions to yourself?" He was already tense and this wasn't helping.

"You don't have to be so sensitive about it. I'm just saying—"

Dwayne gave Angie a light punch in the shoulder. "Come on, Angie, you don't talk about a man's woman like that! You're gonna make Joe go all he-man and have to defend her!"

Angie started smiling. "All right, all right!" She promised to shut up just as their teacher called for their attention.

Since that day, Joe couldn't even mention Ellie around his friends without starting an argument, with Angie criticizing his choice of a girlfriend and Dwayne defending it. Not that Angie and Dwayne needed any excuse to bicker, since it seemed to be their favorite pastime.

Joe and Dwayne had first met in seventh grade honors classes at Warwick Junior High School. Dwayne had towered over Joe even then, and although Joe had finally hit a growth spurt during the past year, he knew he'd never catch up to Dwayne's six feet two. Skinny and often clumsy, Dwayne deflected being the butt of jokes by becoming something of a clown himself. He had a brilliant mind, but struggled in school because he was forever losing track of his assignments. Mr. Hunter had encouraged their friendship by appointing the more organized Joe as Dwayne's homework buddy. The boys had bonded over other common interests, including sci-fi, comic books and later, girls.

They'd become friends with Angie after she transferred to Warwick from a suburban school in ninth grade. At the time, she was a very quiet girl with glasses and French-braided hair who had quickly become the top student in her classes but didn't seem to want to make any friends.

For some reason, Dwayne made it his mission to try to get Angie to smile, or at least to speak. He'd ask her how she was doing each day, only to receive one-word answers. He'd fake confusion about their classwork in order to ask for Angie's help, and often she'd merely point to the page in their textbook where the information was located, after which Dwayne would thank her profusely. On an almost daily basis, he asked to borrow pens or notebook paper from her, since his own were generally lost or wrinkled too badly for use. She'd sigh and silently loan him whichever school supply he needed.

About five or six weeks into the school year, however, Joe noticed that Angie seemed to be thawing, smiling at Dwayne's jokes and answering his questions more fully. Joe was surprised Angie had held out as long as she had, since Dwayne's goofy good humor was hard to resist. One day she came in with an unopened pack of notebook paper and a box of a dozen pens and presented them to Dwayne. "Don't ask me for anything else for at least a month!" she'd said, the first conversation with anyone in school that Angie had initiated. Dwayne had thrown back his head and laughed. From that day forward, Dwayne, Angie and Joe were a threesome.

After their friendship was established, Angie confided in the boys that she'd been really scared about coming to Warwick. Her father had lost his job and her family had had to move from their house in the suburbs to the city. She'd previously been enrolled in a small, predominantly white school, and although she was black, attending the much larger, louder and rowdier Warwick was something of a culture shock.

Over the years, Angie had become as good a friend to Joe as Dwayne was, and so her obnoxiousness toward him lately really bothered him. He didn't understand why she was so antagonistic about Ellie.

He arrived at Angie's at the agreed-upon time, and Dwayne, late as usual, wasn't yet there. Due to the tension between them, Joe felt uncomfortable being alone with her and hoped she wouldn't bring up anything about Ellie.

No such luck. "So how's your girlfriend?" she asked snidely.

"Don't start, Angie."

"What's so special about her, anyway?"

Joe rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"Besides the obvious, Joe. What does she have that I don't?"

He didn't want to answer that. It wasn't that Angie wasn't cute—she was—but she didn't pay much attention to her appearance. Although now that he thought about it, that wasn't so true anymore. Over the summer, she had started wearing contact lenses and getting her hair professionally styled, and her attractiveness was more evident. But Ellie was more than attractive, she was beautiful.

Angie smacked her lips as though she'd read his thoughts. "You and that other idiot! All you think about is looks, and it doesn't matter that someone knows you well and cares about you…"

Her voice drifted and Joe noticed tears in her eyes. He stared at her, feeling the wind knocked out of him as a reason for Angie's moodiness of the last few weeks suddenly hit him. Was she jealous? They had been friends for so long, the possibility of her thinking about him romantically had never occurred to him. If that was the case, he didn't know what to say, or how to make Angie feel any better. Maybe there was a time before Ellie when he might have considered Angie, but that time had long since passed.

"Because of you, that other _idiot _thinks he's going to get some cheerleader, too, and he pays no attention to me!"

It took a moment for Joe to realize the implication of her words. Then he started to laugh from relief, drawing a withering look from Angie. "Sorry, Angie. It's just—you like Dwayne, huh?"

"Oh, yeah, really funny!" she fumed. "Me with Dwayne could never happen, so it's just a joke!"

He walked over and hugged her, biting his tongue to stop his laughter. "That's not why I laughed. I didn't know you liked him. I think you and Dwayne together is great."

Angie wiped the corners of her eyes with her fingers. "Yeah, if he would ever notice me."

Joe released her and lifted her chin. "If he doesn't, he _is_ an idiot. You're a beautiful person, inside and out, Angie. Why don't you tell him you like him?"

"And risk getting my heart broken, _and_ messing up my friendship with him at the same time? No thank you! It's not helping that you're with Ellie, either. What do you see in her, anyway?"

No longer defensive, Joe decided to answer her question. "She's really sweet and caring. I can talk to her about anything and she doesn't judge me. It's like she really accepts me and respects me. She's a lot of fun, too. She makes me feel like a little kid again."

"That's a good thing?"

Joe thought for a moment about his life at home. "Yeah, it is, 'cause I haven't always had the chance to feel that way. She's very bold, too, and I admire that. And she really loves me." Verbalizing his feelings was solidifying them, and he smiled as a wave of warmth filled him. "We really love each other."

Angie nodded. "I'm sorry I said you were shallow before. I should have known better."

Joe shrugged. "It's all right. I still think you should tell Dwayne how you feel."

She twisted her mouth. "I'll think about it."

"I mean it. I liked Ellie for a long time, but I never had the guts to approach her. The first time we went out, she asked _me. _You think Dwayne's any braver than I am?"

"Yeah, but you already liked Ellie. I don't know if Dwayne feels that way about me."

"You want me to ask him?"

Angie shook her head as the doorbell rang. "Please, please don't, Joe. Let me figure it out. Okay?"

Joe nodded, and then laughed again as she went to get the door. Angie and Dwayne! Talking to his friend about her struggles, even if they weren't as monumental as his own, had somehow made him feel less burdened.

*********************

Ellie lay on her bed with her face near the window, watching moisture condense as the heat of the room touched the chilly glass pane. Winter would arrive in about a month, and she would enter her second trimester. The obstetrician at the local clinic said they'd do an ultrasound soon, and they might even see whether she was having a boy or a girl.

Karima wanted it to be a girl. She kept talking about how much fun it would be to buy so many cute baby clothes for her goddaughter. Thankfully, she hadn't told anyone at school that Ellie was pregnant, although in her excitement she'd almost let it slip a few times.

Ellie had had to tell Karima much sooner than she'd planned to. Her first prenatal visit was bad enough with the nurse clucking her tongue about yet another teenage girl coming in pregnant, but what was much worse was what the OB had told her. In addition to all his advice about eating well, resting, and avoiding alcohol and smoking (not that she did either), he'd told her to get regular exercise.

"I'm a cheerleader and I work out every day during practice," she'd said, glad she could tell him she was doing something right since the doctor had already been critical of her junk-food heavy diet.

"You're a cheerleader?" he'd repeated. "Do you do a lot of jumping, tumbling, and flipping?"

When she confirmed that she did, he shook his head. "That's not something you should be doing while you're pregnant. It's much too dangerous for your condition. You need plenty of exercise, but it should be low-impact."

She'd pitched a fit, a downright childish temper tantrum. She was already emotional, and now he was telling her she had to stop her favorite activity, one that had formed a big part of her identity at school! "NO!" she'd screamed. "I won't give it up, and you can't make me!"

It took the combined efforts of her mother, the OB and the nurse to calm her down, lecturing her until she finally surrendered and agreed to quit the squad. Remorseful, Ellie apologized to her mother later, knowing she'd not only embarrassed them both but also added fuel to the negative opinions of teenage mothers the nurse already had. Mama nodded, her mouth a grim line. "Just do what's right for this baby, Ellie. That's all I ask."

On the way to school the next day, however, Ellie's head and heart began to battle again. This thing growing inside her was ruining her life! She'd abort it, that's what she'd do! She knew a girl who'd graduated the year before who'd had an abortion. She'd call her and find out where she went to have it.

As soon as the thoughts entered her head, Ellie stopped, horrified. She had never believed in abortion. She suddenly thought of her stepmother and stifled a laugh. If Florence had considered her a heathen before, an abortion would convince her beyond doubt.

And Ellie knew, in her heart of hearts, that she wanted the child. She had her mother supporting her. Since the first night when her mother told her she'd go through this with her, she hadn't said one critical word to her daughter about getting pregnant. Ellie thought about how she and Karima had considered themselves "real women" because they'd had sex. What a joke. Taking care of this baby would show that she was really grown up. With all Mama was doing for her, she wouldn't let her down.

Even Mitch had surprised her. He'd seen her rushing to the bathroom to throw up one morning and asked if she was going to have a baby. As silly as he often was, he had the good sense not to tease her about this, and was trying to do more chores to take the burden off Ellie.

Then there was Joe. His reaction could have been so different. He could have accused her of sleeping with some other guy, and he would have had every right to. Or he could have blamed her for getting pregnant. Instead, he accepted full responsibility, listened compassionately as Ellie cried when her father called to speak to Mitch and not to her, and brought her pretzels and ginger ale on a regular basis. In terms of boyfriends, Ellie knew she had played the Lotto and won.

With her finger, Ellie drew a large heart in the condensation on the window, and inside wrote "JB + EJ, 4eva." She loved Joe so much, and this child was a part of him.

Maybe when the baby came, she wouldn't be so lonely. Loneliness was an emotion she had rarely experienced before, and now she felt it constantly. She'd gone in to school to tell her cheerleading coach/ gym teacher that she had to quit, giving a need to focus on her schoolwork during senior year as a reason. The coach had been angry, wondering why Ellie didn't decide this back in September when they were holding tryouts for new squad members. Ellie listened silently as the woman berated her, taking yet another lump Haley had told her to deal with.

The rest of the squad thought Ellie was trying to keep up with her nerdy boyfriend. They didn't deliberately shun her, but somehow they let it be known that now she wasn't a part of their group anymore, even outside of cheerleading practice and games.

Karima was still loyal to her and called her on the phone every night. Ellie felt she deserved to know the truth, and her best friend had been supportive. Well, more than supportive, giddy with excitement, to the point that Ellie had to repeat her warnings not to tell anybody. But still, when it came to sitting with their old crowd or with Ellie, Joe and his friends in the cafeteria, Karima chose the old crowd.

After school was the hardest. Joe and her mother were usually at work, Mitch attended an after school program, and Karima was with the rest of the cheerleaders. Ellie went home alone each day, attempted her homework, and tried to lose herself in romance novels. She surprised herself by getting into some of the books she had to read for English class, even with the weird, stiff language. She could really relate to Hester Prynne in _The Scarlet Letter._ She wasn't walking around with a big red A on her chest, but she knew what it was like to feel isolated and judged by people.

Ellie watched drops of water roll over the heart she had created, smearing the initials she had written. "4eva" was still visible, for now at least. She really hoped she and Joe would be together forever. He had started working on his college applications, and some were for out of town schools. Would he choose one of them if he got accepted? The thought of him leaving terrified her.

She pressed a hand against her belly, which had begun to swell slightly. She knew that with this baby, she'd always have a part of Joe with her, but she wanted him with her, too. She started thinking about what she could give him that would make him want to stay with her. And besides, she owed him so much.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

As they disembarked from the bus, Ellie grabbed a handful of newly fallen snow from a nearby stoop and stuffed it down the back of Joe's collar. He laughed even as he winced from the cold, shouting, "Oh, you're in trouble now!" He snatched his own fistful of powdery flakes and threw them at her as she shrieked and ran away from him.

They raced up the stairs and into the front door of Ellie's building, still laughing while they brushed snow from their coats and stomped it off their shoes. "Your present better really be good after that!" Joe said.

Ellie's eyes sparkled as she kissed him quickly. "Oh, it is!" The last couple weeks had been so much better than previous three months, and her characteristic joy had returned. For one thing, the crappy morning sickness had finally ended. Planning this surprise for Joe, however, was the biggest part of her excitement.

"An early Christmas present," she had told him. He kept bugging her for a clue about what it was, or to at least tell him why she had to give it to him early, but she had managed to keep her mouth sealed. It had to be today, the last day of school before the winter break. Starting tomorrow, Mitch would be home and Joe would be swamped at work, trying to generate extra income for his college fund by taking on additional shifts during the Christmas shopping rush.

She asked Joe to wait in the living room while she prepared his surprise. After hanging their damp coats in the bathroom, she went to her bedroom, tingling with anticipation. A few minutes later, she stuck her head out and called to her boyfriend. "It's ready. Can you come here?"

* * *

Joe walked toward Ellie's bedroom, eager but a little wary because he wasn't sure what Ellie had up her sleeve. She had been hinting about giving him something really special for Christmas, but he wasn't sure why she couldn't wait. He hadn't yet bought her present, and if her gift was as good as she was suggesting, he would feel really bad about not having anything to give her in return.

Her door was ajar, and he pushed it open. Ellie, draped in a towel, smiled at him. "Hi there," she said—and dropped the towel.

All he could do was stare. Ellie stood before him, completely naked. He had never seen her fully nude body, since they had always remained partially clothed during the times they'd messed around together. He almost stopped breathing while his eyes took in her beautiful figure. Joe barely registered her saying, "Do you like your present?" as she spun around like a model, giving him a complete view of every smooth and sexy curve.

"I want to make love to you, Joe," Ellie said. Then she laughed. "I had to practice saying that. They always say that in books, but it sounds so quaint and old-fashioned. But it's much more romantic than, 'I want to do it with you,' don't you think?"

Joe tried to say yes, but only a strange, high-pitched sound came from his mouth. He couldn't believe what was happening. By some unspoken agreement, they hadn't done anything, really, besides kissing since Labor Day. Because of the bad memories, or because Ellie had been feeling so sick? He didn't know for sure.

Ellie frowned a little. "What's wrong, Joe? Don't you like the way I look?"

He found his voice. "Uh… we don't… I mean, I don't have a condom…"

She burst out laughing, hurting his feelings somewhat. She walked over, took his face in her hands and pulled his head down for a gentle kiss. "We don't need one, silly. I'm already pregnant."

He felt stupid, even as his flesh ignited from the heat of her against him. "Oh… duh."

Ellie pressed herself against him as she began kissing his neck. He groaned, aching with desire. But his stupid brain was still firing. "Ellie, the baby…"

She laughed again, more gently this time. "We won't hurt the baby. Make love to me, Joe."

Now he _knew_ he was officially weird. A gorgeous, naked girl—and not just any girl, _his _Ellie—was offering herself to him and he was resisting. But he was seized with fear because having sex the last time had ruined everything. He couldn't bear to lose Ellie again.

Ellie sucked on his earlobe, and he trembled. "Joseph, my Joseph," she whispered in his ear. That did it! All fears forgotten, his lips met hers and he kissed her deeply. He heard her purr with pleasure as his hands began stroking her back and bottom. They tumbled onto her bed and removed Joe's clothing within seconds.

* * *

It was over fast, not as fast as last time, but still pretty quickly. But it was pain-free, and Ellie realized that she liked it. And she _loved_ the fact that Joe had cried out that he loved her in the middle of it, and now seemed completely satisfied as he lay with his head resting on her boobs.

But what was this? He was apologizing to her again. "Why?" she asked.

He stuttered something about wondering if it was okay for her. Ellie caressed his face and kissed him deeply. "I really, really liked it this time. I like the way you feel inside me. It's like you belong there." She looked at him, suddenly feeling less confident. "You liked it, right?"

He smiled. "Oh, God, Ellie, yeah! I just want to make sure you did, too."

"I did!" She giggled. "Your sister said we have to practice a lot to get good at it."

Joe looked up, his face horrified. "You talked to my _sister_ about us having sex?!"

She laughed harder. "Well, yeah! It's kinda obvious we did, right, since I'm pregnant?"

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean you have to talk to her about us actually doing it!"

"I think she gave us some good advice. I think we should practice a lot!"

Joe finally laughed with her. "OK, so do I." He lowered his mouth toward her breast.

Ellie pushed his face away. "Ow! Be gentle!"

Joe looked startled. "Did I hurt you? I didn't mean to…"

"They're just tender, that's all. I think they're growing and getting ready to fill up with milk."

He grinned. "I thought they looked bigger!" He lifted first one, and then the other, and then started juggling her breasts up and down with his hands until she was squealing with laughter.

When Ellie finally asked him to stop, he rested his head against the small bump on her abdomen. "That'll be weird, huh, when the baby comes. I guess he'll be sucking on them all the time."

"He? It could be a she."

Joe smiled. "Yeah, it could. But I want a boy so I can teach him to love the Browns."

Ellie rolled her eyes. "You can teach a girl that, too!"

"You don't watch football, though, unless it's at school."

Her mind flitted briefly back to cheerleading at school football games. She paused, a lump in her throat. "I used to watch the Browns on TV," she said quietly. "I just got sick of them letting me down. I hate it when people let me down."

Joe chuckled. "They didn't do it to you _personally_, Ellie." He must have noticed the look on her face, because he took her hand and caressed it gently. "You're thinking about your dad, huh?"

She nodded, the lump in her throat becoming painful. "A few years back, he was sent to Lebanon. I used to pray every night that God would bring him home safe. I promised I would do all my chores and homework and not talk back to my mama ever again. Then he came home and I didn't keep my promise."

"You don't think it's your fault, do you? Like God's punishing you and that's why you got pregnant and your father's not talking to you?"

Ellie's eyes misted over. "He thinks I'm a slut. Him and my stepmother tried to talk to me about not doing anything with you, and they think I lied to them and didn't listen."

She exhaled and gripped Joe's hand tighter. "Do you think us doing it with each other is wrong? I mean, we love each other."

Joe stretched out his body down the length of the bed and pulled Ellie into his arms. "I think we went about it the wrong way the first time, but no, I don't think it's wrong."

He caressed her back and kissed her forehead. "Ellie, you can't blame yourself for how your father acts. I used to do that, too, thinking my pop left because I was bad or did something wrong. But I had to realize it's not my fault, it's just his own shit."

Ellie pressed her lips together. Her father had represented manly perfection to her for so long, it was difficult to accept the breach between them as anything other than her fault. And she _had_ messed up. Lying in Joe's arms like this, she found it hard to see anything immoral about giving him so much pleasure. But she wasn't supposed to end up pregnant, and if they hadn't screwed around, it wouldn't have happened.

Joe massaged her baby bump. "Hey, I was just kidding earlier. I'd be happy with a boy or girl."

Ellie smiled, her heart filling with warmth at what a sweet guy her boyfriend was. Maybe _he_ was her new image of manly perfection. Whatever their mistakes, as long as she had Joe it would be okay.

"Can you feel anything yet?" he asked.

She shook her head. "It's too soon. But I'm showing more and more. Pretty soon everybody at school's going to know."

"Are you okay with that?"

She shrugged. "I guess so." Actually, she was afraid of kids at school gossiping about her, but she wasn't going to bring it up. They had talked about enough sadness already, and she didn't want to completely spoil the good mood of the afternoon.

Joe tenderly touched her face. "You know you called me Joseph earlier?"

"I did, huh?"

"Yeah. You remember when we first went to the movies? You asked if you could call me that, but you never did."

"Do you like it?"

"I love it," he said softly.

They continued to lie together again in companionable silence. Ellie finally spoke. "Hey, I wonder if this will be illegal in a few weeks." A New Year's Eve baby, she was thinking about her upcoming birthday.

"Illegal? What are you talking about?"

"Because I'll be eighteen, and you'll still be seventeen." She arched her eyebrows mischievously. "I could get arrested for statutory rape, you know."

Joe grinned. "Then I'll just have to go to jail with you. So we can keep practicing."

Ellie laughed briefly, and then bit her lip thoughtfully. "I hope we're always together, Joe."

"Me too, honey," he said. "Me, too."

* * *

* Back in the 1980s, the Cleveland Browns football team acquired the nickname, "The Kardiac Kids," because of their tendency to lead their opponents for most of their games only to lose dramatically in the last few minutes, causing much heartache to their fans. This is the first letdown Ellie is referring to, the second of course being her father.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

Joe worked late on Christmas Eve and Ellie spent Christmas day with her relatives, so she wasn't able to see him until Friday, the day after the holiday, when she had dinner with his family. He presented her with a gift of a gold chain necklace with a heart pendant. She knew it was probably expensive, and felt a little embarrassed by her gift for him, a paperback copy of a new novel by a sci-fi writer he liked. When she tried to apologize for it, he hugged her closely and whispered in her ear, "You already gave me your gift, remember? Mine doesn't even come close!"

She laughed in his arms and whispered back, "Yeah, but that wasn't just for you, it was for me, too!"

"Look at them, so cute," Pookie teased. Ellie pulled away, blushing a little and hoping Joe's family hadn't heard their whisperings or if they did, didn't know what they referred to.

"So what'd y'all do yesterday?" she asked, trying to get the focus off her and Joe.

"Nothing much, the four of us just had dinner together," Haley said. "Sorry all we have for you today is leftovers, Ellie."

"That's cool," Ellie said. "Since it wasn't my mama's turn to cook, we don't have any at our house."

After they all fixed their plates and sat down, Ellie thought about something Haley had said. "It was just the four of you at Christmas? You don't have any other relatives around?"

"No, all our kin's down South," Ms. Jackson said.

"Really? Wow," Ellie said, wiping her mouth. "I have too much family around me. I can't get away from them! Were you born down there, Ms. Jackson?"

"I was, in the Mississippi Delta."

"When'd you move here?"

"In 1967. My boys weren't even thought of yet, and Haley was just a little thing."

"What was it like, having your first child? I want to know what to expect when my baby comes."

The room suddenly went silent as everyone's forks stopped moving. Ellie looked first across the table at Ms. Jackson, who was staring at her, to Joe, who was sitting next to her but wouldn't meet her eyes.

Pookie spoke first. "You're going to have a baby, Ellie? Joe Dawg!" His congratulatory tone was obviously trying to break the tension in the room.

Ellie's heart started beating faster as she stared at her boyfriend. "You didn't tell them, Joe? I thought since you told Haley right away, you would have told the rest of your family."

Joe Looked at her guiltily and then looked away.

"How many months are you, Ellie?" Ms. Jackson asked.

"Four," Ellie whispered, a little afraid of what Ms. Jackson would do with the information.

Ms. Jackson turned to her son. "When did you plan to tell me this, Joe?"

He wouldn't look at his mother, either. "I don't know."

"What, you think this was just gonna go away? You didn't think I needed to know?"

"I didn't want to worry you," he said softly.

Ellie's anger suddenly rose. "So you watched me let down my parents but you didn't want to let down your own!" Her eyes filled with tears. "My father won't even talk to me and called me a whore, but you didn't even tell your mother!"

Joe placed his head in his hands. "I'm sorry," he said.

"Sorry for what? For taking the easy way out and letting the woman deal with it, just like your daddy?" his mother snapped.

"Ma, this isn't good for your blood pressure!" Haley said.

Ms. Jackson started rubbing her forehead. "You knew, too, Haley, and didn't tell me neither?"

"It was Joe's job to do that."

Ellie had to bite her tongue to keep from exploding. Yeah, it was Joe's responsibility, but had Haley pushed her brother to come clean as hard as she had pushed her?

Pookie spoke up again. "Y'all need to chill out. They're just going to have a baby. It's not the end of the world."

That silenced the table for a moment, and from the corner of her eye Ellie caught a glimpse of Joe. When she noticed the pain on his face, her anger rapidly dissipated, replaced by a desire to comfort him. She placed her hand on his back and then slid it down his arm to entwine her fingers in his.

"And here I thought it would be your brother I had to worry about," Ms. Jackson said, now sounding more sad than angry.

Pookie shook his head. "Don't look at me, I always wear my jimmy hat."

Perhaps strengthened by his girlfriend's support, Joe finally looked up at his mother. "I'm sorry, Ma, I really am. I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to have anything more to worry about." He stopped and turned to Ellie, speaking more to her now than to Ms. Jackson. "I'm not like Pop. I'll always take care of Ellie."

"So you two have thought about how you're gonna take care of this baby? How you're gonna feed it, buy its diapers, pay for babysitting? And still go to school?"

Ellie was caught off guard by the questions. She and Joe hadn't talked about much beyond getting through the pregnancy. But warmed by his words a moment earlier, she knew that as long as he was with her, everything would be all right.

"Your daddy had big dreams, Joe, just like you do. And he thought he could do it all, too." Ms. Jackson suddenly looked very weary. She turned her gaze to Ellie. "I can't really judge you, 'cause I've been in your shoes. My daddy called me a ho, too."

No one seemed to know what to say after that. Pookie cleaned his plate, but the rest of them appeared to have lost their appetites. Finally, Haley pushed her seat back and stood up. "I'm going out," she said. "Let me give you a ride home, Ellie." It wasn't a question.

"Can I get a ride, too?" Pookie asked.

When Haley nodded, Joe asked if he could have a few minutes to talk to Ellie first. After he pulled her into the hallway, she threw her arms around him and kissed him.

"You mean you're not mad at me?' he asked when they stopped.

Ellie smiled. "Well, I was… but that was until you told your mother you'd always take care of me."

He touched her face gently. "I mean that, Ellie."

"I know."

"I'm sorry I didn't tell my mother," he repeated.

"It's okay." She paused. "Hey, what did you mother mean when she said her daddy called her a ho, too?"

Joe shook his head. "She was pregnant with Haley before her and my pop got married, so I guess my grandfather wasn't happy about it."

Pondering that comment, she wasn't sure what else to say, but Haley and Pookie's exit from the apartment ended their conversation anyway. Ellie hugged Joe and told him she loved him before saying goodnight.

After his siblings and girlfriend headed downstairs and out the building, Joe remained outside the door for several minutes, his stomach clenching. He knew that sooner or later he had to face his mother, so he finally forced himself to walk back in.

"Sit down, Joe," his mother said when she heard the door shut.

"You know, I been through a lot in my life," she said slowly after he sat down. "A hell of a lot. You didn't think I could handle hearing that you got your girlfriend pregnant?"

"I didn't want to let you down."

"You let me down more by not trusting me enough to tell me."

Joe looked down, feeling ashamed.

"You still need me to sit down with you about them papers you need for college, right?"

"Yeah," he answered, remembering that he'd asked his mother for help in completing his federal student financial aid forms.

"Well, when we do them, we need to take some time to talk about how you and Ellie gonna make this work."

"Okay."

"What's Ellie doing after school these days?"

He looked at his mother in surprise. "Nothing except going home. Why?"

"Tell her to come visit me sometime. I want to holler at her."

"Why?" he asked somewhat sharply. He was a little nervous about what Ma wanted with Ellie, even though he knew in his mother's Southern lingo, "holler" meant talk to and not scream at.

His mother smiled, for the first time since the bomb dropped earlier that evening. "She's gonna be the mama of my first grandbaby. I'd like to get to know her better."

Joe exhaled in relief.

"Come here, honey," she said.

When he walked over and sat on the sofa beside her, his mother pulled him into a big bear hug. Kissing his forehead, she said, "I guess my baby's a man now."

Under any other circumstances, those words would have filled him with pride, but now it reminded him of how much he'd messed up.

His mother seemed to sense his shame. She took his face in her hand. "I love you, Joe. That means I'll always be here for you, too."

It was Joe's turn to smile as he hugged his mother back. He even let her rub his head the way she used to when he was a little boy.

Joe had to work the next day, and was surprised to find his brother at home when he returned in the later afternoon. "Haley had to go out, and Ma's not doing too well," Pookie told him.

Joe nodded a little guiltily. Stress always took a toll on their mother, increasing her pain levels. "Is she sleeping?"

"Yeah. Listen, after you eat, come in the bedroom. I want to give you something."

About a half hour later, Joe entered the room he shared with his brother. Pookie reached into the top dresser drawer and tossed him a box of Trojans. "What are these for?" he asked.

Pookie laughed. "What do you think?"

Joe tossed the box back. "Since Ellie's pregnant, we don't need them."

"So you plan to stop doing the wild thing after she has the baby?"

Joe grinned. "No."

"Aright then." Pookie removed one plastic-wrapped condom from the box and threw it back. "Get it up and try it on. I want to make sure you can do it right."

Joe started laughing. "This is embarrassing."

"Yeah, well, your stupid ass should want to be embarrassed instead of ending up with a bunch of kids. If I'd made you do this a long time ago, maybe you wouldn't have knocked up your girl."

A vision of a naked Ellie in her bedroom flooded Joe's brain, and he knew he wouldn't need to masturbate much to get it up. When his body filled with warmth, however, he realized it wasn't just arousal. He understood more than ever how much his family had always loved and protected him, and were continuing to do so, even now.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

Only the sounds of chewing broke the silence as Ellie, Joe and his mother sat eating the tuna fish sandwiches and potato chips Joe had prepared for them. Ellie nervously wondered again why Joe had invited her to have lunch with his mother on Sunday afternoon, even though he kept reassuring her that Ms. Jackson wasn't mad at her and just wanted to get to know her.

Ellie used the quiet meal time to study Ms. Jackson. She was heavy-set, in contrast to her slender children, and shapeless in her house robe. Her face, however, was fascinating. Her eyes, to Ellie's surprise, looked as normal and focused as anyone else's. Joe had told her that his mother wasn't completely blind; she saw people and objects as shapes, but was unable to make out any details.

Ms. Jackson's hair, unrelaxed and French-braided, was flecked with gray, but her dark complexion appeared clear, soft and unlined. Her smooth skin and serene expression gave her an unexpected beauty.

Ellie's appraisal brought her some comfort, but still, no one seemed to want to start the conversation. Ellie desperately wished Haley had stayed, but after a warm greeting, she said she had to run out to buy some more paints.

She and Joe's sister had made peace during the truck ride home on Friday night. Haley had initiated. "You must think I'm a big hypocrite, huh?"

Even though she found Haley somewhat intimidating, Ellie's anger at the girl was nevertheless strong enough to loudly answer, "Yes!"

"You had to tell your mother, Ellie, for the baby's sake. We tend to try to protect our mother, but in this case, it was wrong. I should have made Joe tell her anyway. So I'm sorry."

Ellie nodded, still a little ticked off.

Pookie piped up. "Are we all cool now? Sister Sledge, _We Are Family,_ and all that?"

She and Haley both laughed, and Haley glanced over at her. "Are we, Ellie?"

She found she couldn't stay mad anymore. "Yeah, we're cool," she replied with a smile.

Being on good terms with the sister wasn't the same as being on good terms with the mother, though. Ms. Jackson's habit of sitting very still also unnerved her, although she guessed that maybe it was because movement caused Joe's mother physical pain.

After finishing her sandwich, Ms. Jackson drank a glass of water and looked at Ellie. "How's school going?"

"It's okay." Ellie didn't think it would impress the woman to hear that her grades were mediocre compared to Joe's.

"What classes do you like?"

"English, because I like to read, and Spanish I guess, because we play a lot of games, so it's fun."

"What are you reading in English?"

"The last book we had to read before Christmas break was called _Pride and Prejudice._ I wasn't sure I'd like it, but it was really romantic, and a lot funnier than I thought it would be."

Ms. Jackson smiled. "I read that book a long time ago. I liked it, too, especially 'cause when I read it, my last name was Bennet."

Ellie wrinkled her brow. "How come you go by Ms. Jackson now?" Then she winced, embarrassed about asking such a nosy question.

Ms. Jackson's silence for several seconds didn't help, and Ellie was worried that she had offended her. She looked at Joe for help, but he seemed to have no problem waiting for his mother to respond.

After another sip of water, the woman spoke again. "When my kids' daddy left me, I didn't have a lot of skills, my health wasn't good, and I had three kids. I didn't know how I was gonna make it, and I got really depressed. Finally I decided I had to get out of my funk, 'cause otherwise I wouldn't be able to take care of my kids and I could end up losing them to the state. Then when we went to court for the divorce, the judge asked me if I wanted to change my name back to what it was before. I didn't even know I could do that, but I said, 'yeah!' And somehow, that one thing made me believe I could make it on my own."

Ellie thought about her own mother who was still Jameson eleven years after her parents' divorce. She wondered if Mama had ever felt the same way, unsure she could handle being a single mother. But Mama was surrounded by extended family. Ms. Jackson was all alone up here. Big difference.

She suddenly felt a deep admiration for the woman in front of her. "It seems like you _did _make it on your own, because you did a really good job with your kids."

Ms. Jackson smiled shyly. "Naw, I'm just lucky."

"No, you're not! Your kids are great. That's not just luck."

Ms. Jackson laughed. "OK, then, I'll say I'm blessed. 'Cause if my kids wanted to act like fools, what could I do to stop them? But all of them help out, and they're respectful to me. I know Randolph likes to run the streets, but I keep telling him not to do anything that'll get him shot or sent to jail, and I have to trust that he's listening."

"They probably know how much you love them and believe in them, and don't want to let you down." Right after saying the words, Ellie suddenly realized what Haley meant when she said they try to protect their mother—it wasn't just from telling her bad news, it was from creating bad news in the first place.

"I'm still blessed, because I know other mamas who love their kids, and the kids are out of control. I never got to go to high school, and I just wanted them to graduate, that's all. My oldest two not only finished, but Haley has her business and Randolph has his apprenticeship, so they're doing something positive with their lives. And now my baby is about to graduate _and_ go on to college!" She stopped and touched Joe's face. "I just thank the heavens every day, 'cause I know it could have been different."

Ellie smiled, remembering her own thoughts about how different getting pregnant could have been, if Joe had been a less caring or responsible young man. Emboldened by the ease of the conversation, she asked another question. "What's your first name, Ms. Jackson? I hope you don't mind me asking."

"It's all right. It's Janelle."

Ellie's face lit up. "That's a beautiful name! I kind of collect names, because I never liked my own." She didn't mention that she was also searching for baby names, since she feared that bringing up the pregnancy might end their rapport.

"Thank you, sweetie. Yours is a fine name, too. I knew a few Ellie's growing up. It's a common name down South."

"I bet you didn't know any other Janelle's, though."

Ms. Jackson laughed again. "No, but my middle name is Mae, just like almost every other girl I knew growing up. Mae or Lee or Lou. You put it all together—Janelle Mae Jackson—and yeah, that's a Southern girl's name all right."

Ellie felt Joe's hand on her leg, and she looked at his face. He hadn't said much, but he was smiling, obviously happy about the way things were going.

"You can call me that, if you want."

Ellie looked at Ms. Jackson in surprise. "By your first name? Are you sure?"

"Um-hmm. You know, where I grew up, you couldn't call no grownups by their first name, unless you put something in front of it, like Mr. or Miz, or sometimes Aunt or Uncle. But you know, Ellie, you're pretty much a woman now. Ain't no reason why we can't be equals."

"Thanks, Ms—Janelle." Ellie was really touched. Janelle's declaration of Ellie's womanhood was almost the same as her stepmother's the previous summer, but while Florence had made her feel condescended to, Janelle made her feel honored.

"And I want you to come visit me again and keep me company. Even if Joe's working. He don't need to be here."

"What, you don't want me around?" Joe said with a laugh.

His mother grinned slyly. "That's right, 'cause maybe Ellie and I have some woman stuff to talk about."

"OK, then," he added, still laughing.

Not long afterward, Janelle said she was tired and left them to take a nap. Ellie helped Joe with the dishes from lunch, and then he led her to the sofa, where he placed his arm around her.

Ellie rested her head against his shoulder. "I like your family, Joe. No, I really, _really_ like your family."

He smiled. "They really like you, too, Ellie."

"It's going to be fun coming to visit your mother. Maybe now I won't be so bored after school."

"I'm glad," Joe said, stroking her hair and lifting her chin to kiss her. They spent an extended period making out, both unwilling to do more than that out of respect for Janelle's presence in the nearby bedroom. Desire certainly put the idea in their heads, however, and they discussed when and where they could find some time alone together.

Joe made Ellie laugh by telling her about his brother's condom lesson. As she continued to snuggle against him, Ellie thought about how enormously happy she felt at the moment. Not only did Joe's family accept her, but Pookie's "lesson" obviously meant they expected the relationship to continue even after the baby was born.

* * *

In early January, Joe and his mother sat down to fill out his college financial aid applications, standardized forms used to determine his eligibility for government grants, work study, and need-based scholarships. The forms were complicated, but the task was made easier after a conversation with Mr. Hunter clarified that he didn't need to include any information about the incomes of his sister or his father, as a non-contributing, non-custodial parent. Joe found himself somewhat equipped to answer the questions about his own and his mother's income because he had accompanied her the previous year to one of the many H&R Black offices that popped up every February to April in Longbourn City in order to file her income tax forms and for the first time, his own. When they had completed the financial aid applications, Joe guided his mother's hand to sign them.

"I'm glad you're good with numbers, honey," Ma said. "This woulda drove me crazy if I had to do this when I was your age. So what happens now?"

"I send them in, and they look them over to make sure they're right. Mr. Hunter said they'll probably send them back with corrections I need to make and not to freak out, because almost everybody makes mistakes the first time they fill them out."

"You think you'll get enough money for your schooling?"

Joe shrugged. "I hope so. Mr. Hunter said one big problem is that they sometimes give you enough money for your first year, and then it goes down after that. But he said that our income is probably low enough that I'll qualify for a lot of government grants."

His mother's expression was serious. "You know we need to talk about some other stuff, right? Like this baby."

Joe nodded, resigned. It had been easier to put off thinking about anything beyond being happy about a new life, but he knew he couldn't do that forever.

"When's the baby due?"

"Late May."

"What's Ellie planning to do after she graduates?"

"She wants to go to cosmetology school. There's a program that starts in September. She figures by then the baby will be old enough to put in daycare, or maybe she can pay one of her neighbors to watch it."

"Her mama's gonna still let her live with her?"

"Yeah."

"So who's paying for daycare and cosmetology school?"

"I told her I would pay for daycare, and she's going to try to save up for school."

"From what, working?"

"Yeah."

"How's she gonna work this summer with a newborn baby?"

Joe didn't know how to answer that. When his mother let out a sigh, he said, "OK, _I'll_ pay for her to go to school. And maybe her mother'll be able to help out."

"You gonna pay for her schooling with the money you're saving for your own schooling?"

Joe was left dumbstruck again. Ma went on. "What about other stuff? I'll tell you now, diapers ain't cheap and formula for damn sure ain't cheap. But you know that. That's why they keep it under lock and key at Kmart."

"Ellie's going to breastfeed."

"Maybe she'll do that for a little while, but it's gonna be awful hard to keep nursing a baby if she's working and going to school."

"I get discounts at work! I'll buy her the formula and diapers!"

"Then you'll use up them discounts real quick. You wouldn't believe how fast a baby can go through a bottle of formula or a pack of diapers."

Joe just shook his head. He was getting irritated with his mother, something that almost never happened.

"Look, Joe," Ma said more gently, "I've raised three kids. I know what it costs. Do you remember the years before y'all were old enough to work, and we'd run out of food stamps before the end of the month? And the reason my sugar is so bad now is 'cause for years I couldn't always pay for my medications."

"So why didn't you make Pop pay for some of that stuff?" he snapped. "You could've took him to court."

His mother didn't answer him for a while. "I got my reasons," she finally said. "It's complicated."

"What's complicated about it? He's a man who didn't want to take care of his family, so you make him!"

"That's enough, Joe!"

"Why do you always defend him? You told Ellie you wanted to make it on your own, but that sounds like another way of letting him off the hook!"

"I said, ENOUGH!" she uncharacteristically yelled.

From the stress in her voice, Joe knew she would probably have another flare-up in the next 24 hours. But he tamped down his rising guilt. Pop should have been here, taking care of _his wife,_ and maybe Ma wouldn't be in such bad shape.

Joe gathered together all the paperwork on the table and stood up. "I'm not going to be like Pop," he said firmly. "Ellie's never going to have to make it on her own."

* * *

**Sister Sledge, "We Are Family," 1979. You can hear this song on Youtube here: **

**www. youtube. com/watch?v=wSDh94eQTAk (remove the spaces after each dot)**


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

One afternoon in late January, two admissions officers from Meryton State held interviews for Longbourn High students in the school cafeteria. A public four-year university, Meryton State was among the top choices for both Dwayne and Joe because it was local and, relatively speaking, affordable. Neither he nor Dwayne had grades and test scores as sterling as those of Angie, who was already a finalist for several academic scholarships.

Angie was only attending the interview session at the behest of their guidance counselor, who had insisted that she needed a "safety school" among her college applications to such places as Northwestern and Oberlin. "This is a waste of time," she griped. "I have so much homework to do, and I know I don't want to go there, even if I get accepted."

Dwayne tried to cheer her by telling her he and Joe needed the support. "Your being there will rub off on us," he teased. "Dudes will have this sensation of brilliance and success from your aura, and they'll think it's coming from one of us."

She laughed. "I think Joe'll do just fine on his own, but you might need my help, so I guess I'll stay!"

The three had started walking toward the cafeteria at the end of the school day when Joe felt gentle fingers slide into his own. He squeezed Ellie's hand and then released it to put his arm around her shoulder. "I was hoping I'd see you before you left."

"I wanted to wish you good luck," she said.

Joe smiled. This was his first college interview since the one at Kenyon during the summer, and he was experiencing the same bout of nerves. He stopped and pulled Ellie into a classroom doorway in order to exchange a deep kiss. "Thanks," he said softly. "That was exactly what I needed."

Ellie looked up at him, pressing her hands on his chest. "Call me tonight and let me know how it goes, OK?"

He nodded and kissed her again, and watched her walk away before turning back to his friends, who had stopped to wait for him. Dwayne looked at Joe with a puzzled expression. "Hey," he said quietly. "Ellie's coat seems, I don't know… big. Is she pregnant?"

Joe didn't answer, but he didn't have to. Angie did it for him. "Yeah," she said. "You didn't know that?"

"Did Ellie tell you?" Joe asked.

Angie shook her head. "I guessed." In answer to his questioning look, she said, "She's gaining weight. And you're really… solicitous of her. More than just being a considerate boyfriend."

"Is it yours?"

"Dwayne!" Angie shouted.

Joe gave him a look of disgust. "Yeah, it's mine!"

Dwayne held his hands up. "Sorry, I was just surprised since you said you weren't getting laid."

"No, I said it wasn't your business, and you assumed what you wanted."

Dwayne nodded to acknowledge the point, and then pointed at Joe in mock lecture mode. "If you take it out, you're supposed to wrap it up."

Joe rolled his eyes. "I _know_ that. We messed up."

"No duh." Dwayne grinned. "So what's it like?"

"What, expecting a baby?"

"No, you know…" Dwayne left the question hanging.

Joe stared at him. Dwayne didn't just ask that, did he? In front of Angie no less! He scowled. "Stop worrying about my love life and worry about your own."

Dwayne laughed. "I don't have one, so I have to live vicariously through yours. But you could help me out by asking Ellie to hook me up with her friend Karima."

Joe turned suddenly to Angie, whose face was a mask. "You know, I really have too much homework to be here today," she said slowly. "Sorry, Joe." She turned and started running in the other direction.

Dwayne watched her go. "What's wrong with her?"

"You." Joe clenched his fist, seriously hoping he wouldn't hit the other boy. "You're what's wrong."

He caught up with Angie at her locker, where she was angrily stuffing textbooks into her backpack. He spoke her name.

"Leave me alone, Joe!"

He touched her arm and she shook him off. "I don't know what's wrong with me! He acts like a child! Why do I even like him?"

"Why _do _you like him?"

Angie ceased her frantic shoving and exhaled, hard. "Because he makes me laugh. Because he kept trying to be a friend to me when no one else would. And there are times when he's the sweetest person in the world." She shook her head. "But other times I just wish he'd grow up!"

She abruptly turned her fierce gaze in Joe's direction. "And you! I thought you were the mature one! How the hell could you be so _stupid_?!"

"You don't think I've been asking myself that question for months?"

"What are you going to do?

"Ellie's going to have the baby, and I'll help her take care of it."

"What about college?"

"I'm still going."

"So you think it's going to be easy to take care of a baby _and _go to school?"

"I know it's not going to be easy!"

Angie just looked at him sadly.

"How come you never said anything before if you knew?"

She shrugged. "I figured you'd talk about it when you were ready."

Remembering the interviews going on, Joe started to feel antsy. "Hey, are you going to be okay?"

Angie nodded. "Yeah. Thanks for asking."

"Are you coming down to the cafeteria or going home?"

She smirked. "I have _no _desire to go to Meryton State."

"OK, I'll see you tomorrow, then." He turned to walk away, but Angie touched his arm to stop him. He held back his sigh of frustration; she obviously had more she wanted to talk about.

"I'm not that ugly and unappealing, am I?"

Now he did sigh; they were back here again?

"Don't answer that, Joe. I shouldn't have asked."

"Angie…" He shook her head. "Speaking as a guy, you're very pretty." In response to her eye roll, he said, "You are! And speaking as your friend, you have a great personality."

"Then why's he so into Karima?"

"Because Dwayne is like me. Insecure about girls. It's easier to, you know, dream about somebody out of reach than do something about not having a girlfriend."

"But you ended up with Ellie."

He laughed. "Like I told you before, she asked _me_ out_. _ And right now, you're doing the same thing he is."

"What's that?"

"Letting your insecurities take over. You need to tell him. And knowing Dwayne, don't be surprised if he says something stupid at first. Just ignore it. He'll come back later and tell you if he feels the same way."

Angie nodded, and finally noticed his agitation. "You need to go, don't you?"

He looked at the giant clock on the wall at the end of the hallway. It was 2:40, and the interviews had started almost a half hour earlier. "Yeah, I do." Angie thanked him again for listening, and he took off running.

After holding on to the cafeteria door so it would close slowly instead of slamming, Joe scanned the room. The two interviewers, a man and a woman, were in separate corners each meeting with a student. There were about twenty other kids sitting around a couple of tables in the middle of the room, where Mrs. Molina, the senior guidance counselor, was trying to keep them quiet. When he approached the group, she whispered, "Where have you been, Joe? And do you know where Angie Carpenter is?"

"Sorry," he whispered back. "Angie had to go home."

"I had you scheduled in alphabetical order, and you were one of the first names they called. More students showed up than I expected, and I had them take yours and Angie's slots. Have a seat with everyone else, and I'll see if they can fit you in."

A short while later, the male interviewer dismissed the student with him and called the next name. Mrs. Molina motioned for the student to wait, and walked over with Joe. After introducing him, she said, "Joe's among the top twenty students in the senior class. Will there be time to meet with him?"

The man frowned a little. "What happened, young man?"

Joe apologized. "I had to help a friend."

"We have a very tight schedule here, and later we have interviews lined up at a youth center." He paused and pulled a business card from the pocket of his suit jacket. "Give me a call, and I'll try to see if I can fit you in during the next few weeks. You'll have to come to the campus, however."

Joe took the card. "That's fine. Thank you."

After the man called the next student again, Mrs. Molina walked away with him and whispered, "Not good, Joe. I don't think he was at all impressed."

Joe nodded glumly. "I know."

He didn't want to discuss the interview, but it was the first thing Ellie asked about when he called her that evening.

"I missed it," he confessed.

"Why? What happened?"

"I… had to talk to Angie about something."

"About Dwayne?"

He hesitated. "What about Dwayne?"

"Well, I know she really likes him, but he hasn't figured it out yet."

"She told you?"

"No, but it's obvious from the way they act around each other."

Joe smiled at her echo of Angie's deduction of the pregnancy. Were these examples of women's intuition, or of the girls being much more observant than the clueless boys? "Yeah, it was about Dwayne. He keeps hurting her by talking about other girls. I reminded her that you asked me out the first time—"

"The first _two _times," Ellie corrected.

He laughed. "That's right, the first two times. So I think she should tell him she likes him and see what he does, but she's scared she'll get rejected."

"You want me to do something?"

"Like what?" Joe suddenly felt guilty about discussing this with Ellie. But Angie never told him to withhold anything from his girlfriend, only Dwayne, so it was probably okay.

"I don't know. I'll think of something."

Joe grinned. "Should I be worried? I don't know about you playing matchmaker…"

Ellie laughed. "Thanks to you, my darling Joseph, I am an _expert _on love!"

By the end of their conversation, he was feeling much better about the missed interview, since Ellie was also an expert at making him smile.

* * *

Ellie's matchmaking opportunity came a few days later when Karima asked her to help sell tickets to the Valentine's Day dance in the gym. Karima was on the committee that was planning Senior Weekend in May, which would include the senior prom on Friday, the after prom party on Saturday, and the senior class trip to Cedar Point Amusement Park on Sunday. The Valentine's Day dance would be one of several fundraisers to help offset the costs of Senior Weekend.

When she met Joe by his locker at the beginning of the day as usual, she asked him sweetly, "Why don't you buy my first tickets? It would be really pathetic if I can't even sell them to my own boyfriend."

Joe laughed and asked the price, which was ten dollars for a single ticket or fifteen dollars for a couple. "I have to get some cash but I'll buy our tickets first thing tomorrow."

She turned to Dwayne, who was standing nearby. "What about you? Are you going to buy some tickets from me, too?"

Dwayne laughed nervously. "Ellie, I can't dance. I trip over my big feet all the time. And you and Joe don't want me hanging around you all night, do you?"

"You can get your own date, can't you? The tickets are cheaper that way, too."

Dwayne's eyes suddenly widened. "You think Karima would go with me if you asked her?"

"Karima's talking with this guy from North Central." This was true. Karima had thankfully broken up with Greg a couple of months earlier, and had recently met a boy from another high school who seemed to be very nice.

"There must be somebody else you can ask," Ellie said in response to Dwayne's disappointed look.

"Like who?"

She pretended to think about it for a moment. "How about Angie?"

"Why would she go with me?"

"Because she's your friend. It's always fun to do things with your friends. In fact, it'll be fun for all four of us to go together. Besides," Ellie grinned, "if you accidently step on her feet, she won't get mad and walk away from you like some girl might who doesn't know you as well."

Dwayne smiled a little. "All right. I can do that. But I don't have any money now, either."

"That's OK. Ask her first, and then you can pay me in the next couple of days."

After Dwayne walked away, Joe laughed. "How did you manage to do that? That was so easy!"

Ellie looked at him smugly. "I told you I was an expert!"

"Yeah, you are!" He kissed her nose and then her lips. "I just hope Dwayne doesn't screw up and say something dumb that hurts Angie's feelings."

"I don't think he will. You heard what he said, right? _Why would she go with me? _If he was not wanting to go out with Angie at all, he would've been like, 'Why would I go with her?' I don't think he wants to screw up."

"Yeah, but, this is _Dwayne_ we're talking about. He doesn't always think."

She smiled mischievously. "Then it's your turn, honey. Help the boy out!"


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

"OK, how 'bout this one?" Karima asked, holding up a magenta dress that looked more like a sack, even if it was a pretty color.

Ellie tried to hold back her tears at being offered another whale-looking outfit. Angie had asked for her help in buying a dress, and since she and Karima had wanted to shop for the dance anyway, the three of them decided to visit the mall together on Saturday. Several stores catered to trendy teen fashions, and some were reasonably priced. In the first store they tried, Angie found a short-sleeved mauve dress that was tight in the bust and had a flared skirt, and in the second, Karima purchased a form-fitting black sheath with silver threads that sparkled in the light, and a matching empire-waist jacket.

This was the fifth store they had visited, and Ellie still hadn't found something she could wear. She knew that her weight gain was such that she could no longer wear her usual size 7, but she was shocked when size 9 and size 11 dresses proved too tight for her expanding waistline. When her friends started bringing her dresses in sizes 13 and up, however, they were clearly too big, falling off her shoulders and billowing around her hips, even if they provided plenty of room for her abdomen.

Noticing her distress, Karima put her arm around Ellie's shoulder and hugged her. "Maybe we should forget about shopping and go get something to eat."

"No!" Ellie wailed. "I have to find something, Karima, I _have_ to!" Attending the dance had become a vital mission for Ellie. Selling tickets to support Senior Weekend had driven home the point for her that her baby was due around that time, and she wouldn't be able to go. After looking forward to Senior Weekend since she first started high school, she had never dreamt she would miss it. It made her realize that this would be her last chance in high school to attend a special dance, and her only chance to go with the boy she loved.

"Ellie," Angie said softly, "maybe we should try a maternity store."

Ellie's head snapped in the other girl's direction. "Joe didn't tell me," Angie said. "I figured it out on my own."

"A maternity store? Yeah, right. If regular clothes make me look like a hippo, maternity clothes will be even worse."

"Maybe not, Ellie. They'll probably have something that's actually your size, but made to fit around the baby."

Ellie bit her lip. She was starting to feel sorry for herself again, which she hadn't felt in months. Maybe she should just forget about the dance… but she knew she would regret that even more. "All right, I'll try it," she said.

They located a maternity store on the mall's kiosk directory. When they approached the shop, most of the clothes visible from the front were loose fitting shirts and blouses, and slacks with funny-looking, stretchy front panels. Everything looked pretty ugly to Ellie, the pants especially, and she blinked back tears again when she realized that she probably needed to buy clothing like that soon. So far, she had been making do with loose sweaters and keeping the button of her jeans undone.

When they entered, Ellie gasped as she spotted the price ranges on the signs above the racks. Angie grabbed her hand and pulled her forward. "Don't look at the prices," she whispered.

How could she _not _look at the prices? Her mother had given her fifty dollars, forty for a dress, and ten for a pair of heels at Payless. If a stupid _blouse_ cost fifty bucks, how would she ever be able to afford a dress?

A sales clerk approached them. "What are you girls doing in here?" she asked harshly.

Karima loudly clicked her tongue, but Angie smiled brightly. "Thank you for offering to help us," she said. "We're attending a dance soon and my friend needs a dress. What do you have in terms of dressy dresses?"

The woman raised her eyebrows. "Are you sure you can afford to shop here?"

Ellie wanted to shout, "No!" but Angie, still holding her hand, squeezed it to silence her. "Yes, ma'am. We have our parents' credit cards."

"You have ID to verify that?"

"Yes, ma'am."

The sales clerk nodded. "We don't have a very big dress section, but you should be able to find something. This way, please." She led them to a small section in the back of the store. "Just so you know, everything is electronically tagged, and you can only take up to four items in the dressing room at a time."

Angie smiled again sweetly. "Thank you very much!"

As soon as she walked away, Karima mumbled, "Bitch."

"Shhh," Angie said. "We don't want to be asked to leave."

"Yeah, but she's only treating us this way 'cause we're teenagers and we're black!" Karima whispered. _And one of us is pregnant,_ Ellie added in her head. No wonder the woman was looking down on them.

"Like our money's not as good as somebody else's!" Karima went on. "And since we can't get them stupid tags off, it's not like we could steal something even if we wanted to. Which we don't!"

"I know that, but you know what my father always says?" Angie replied. "He says to walk in and be polite, but don't let them intimidate you. Act like you have every right to be there, because you do."

"Yeah, but I don't have a right to be here!" Ellie said. "Maybe you got your mother's credit card, Angie, but I don't! I can't afford the stuff in here!"

"Don't worry about it, Ellie. I'll pay for it."

"I can't let you do that!"

"Yes, you can! You helped me, so let me help you. If you find something you like, give me whatever you have, and I'll make up the difference."

Ellie pressed her lips together. _This is your last high school dance,_ she reminded herself. _You need a dress._ "OK," she said reluctantly.

After Ellie tried on a few items, the girls agreed upon a form-fitting black sheath much like Karima's dress, but containing enough spandex to make it stretchy and comfortable. The dress had an elegant gold top that fit over it, long enough to cover Ellie's abdomen. "Nice!" Karima said as Ellie modeled it.

Ellie smiled at her reflection as she spun around. It _did _look good, and made her feel very pretty.

The tag was in the back of the top, and Angie refused to let her see the price. After paying for it, she ripped the price from the perforation, leaving the part of the tag with the item number and designer name intact in case Ellie decided to return it.

On the following Saturday, February 14th, the girls spent the day getting their hair and nails done at House of Beauty. Karima was used to paying half price when Ellie's mom did her hair, but Angie was surprised when Ms. Jameson refused to take money from her at all. "Did you or did you not help pay for my daughter's dress?" she said when Angie protested.

Because Angie was the only one among the three couples with a driver's license, the girls returned to her house to eat dinner, get dressed and apply their makeup, and then left to pick up the boys, who were meeting at Dwayne's. Tevin, the boy from North Central who Karima was seeing, wore a burgundy suit, while Joe was dressed in dark gray slacks and a black shirt. Dwayne had attempted, somewhat less than successfully, a _Miami_ _Vice_ look with jeans, a white t-shirt and a blazer, but still, it was as cleaned up as any of them had ever seen him. "At least he's wearing socks," Joe joked, especially since a light snow had started falling outside.

As nice as the boys looked, however, it was the looks they gave the girls when they first saw them that were really priceless.

* * *

If Ellie had considered this her last high school dance, Joe was musing about it being his first one. He wasn't a bad dancer, but he had always been too shy in the past to invite a girl, or to attend stag in the hopes of getting lucky in finding a dance partner. Now here he was with the most beautiful girl in school on his arm. In the lights of the school gym, her gold hoop earrings sparkled against her amber skin, while the necklace he'd given her for Christmas rested against the matching top of her stylish dress. Best of all, her eyes glowed with happiness when she looked at him.

Angie was having trouble coaxing Dwayne onto the dance floor. "My legs are cramped from the car ride," was his excuse.

Joe rolled his eyes. "What are you complaining about? You were in the front seat. There were four of us squeezed in back."

"Baby, why don't you dance with Angie, then?" Ellie asked innocently.

"Yeah, good idea! Come on, Angie." Joe rose from the bleacher seat and reached out to his friend.

Angie thanked Joe and stood to take his hand, and Dwayne suddenly realized he was about to lose his date, even if it was to his very unavailable best friend. "No, that's okay, I'll go out there!" he said quickly.

Joe watched them walk away and turned to Ellie, laughing. "You're bad, you know that?"

Ellie grinned impishly. "Well, you know, we can't just get them here. We have to finish the job." She stood up. "Come on, I want to dance, too."

Although they were having too much fun while dancing to watch anybody else, Joe and Ellie managed to keep an eye on Angie and Dwayne during the many breaks Ellie needed to cool off or go to the bathroom. Dwayne flailed around a bit goofily at times, but he didn't embarrass himself too badly.

When the DJ started playing Ready for the World's "Love You Down," Joe pulled Ellie close. As she shifted her legs in rhythm with his, he felt her belly pressed against him. It sent shivers through him. This was their child he was feeling… the product of their love.

Ellie looked up at him, her expression one of sweet awe. "I love you, Joe." In the reverberations around the room of amped-up music and voices, he could barely hear her, but he saw her lips move to form the words. And he felt it. He felt it... This gorgeous, special girl thought the world of him, and he of her.

His mouth met hers, soft and sweet, and he almost stopped dancing to cherish the moment, until he remembered that too much PDA could get you pulled off the dance floor by one of the teacher chaperones. He broke the kiss, still yearning for more, and looked away so he wouldn't be tempted to start again. His eyes suddenly widened. "Look at that, look at that!"

Ellie turned her head and started giggling in delight. Dwayne and Angie were dancing closely together—_very_ closely. And he was obviously managing to avoid her feet!

Joe turned back to Ellie and found that neither of them could stop giggling, as happy for their friends as they were with one another. When the music stopped, they continued to hold each other and rock slowly. "Happy Valentine's Day, honey," he told her.

"You too," she said softly. Then she abruptly pulled away from him. "I have to use the bathroom."

"Again?"

She laughed. "Yeah, again. It's the baby, Joe."

He watched her walk away and then smiled as he saw Angie and Dwayne holding hands as they strolled to the punch table. He decided to get something to drink for Ellie and himself while he waited for her to return. When he passed Dwayne and Angie, he gave them a brief congratulatory nod, not wanting to interrupt them.

"Joe, where's my coat?" he heard Ellie say sharply behind him.

He turned around. "Why, do you want to go outside and get some air?"

"No, I want to go home."

Joe looked at Ellie closely. Her face showed that she was clearly upset. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing! Can we just go?"

"It's kind of late to catch the bus. We should wait for Angie and the rest of them."

She frowned, breathing heavily. Knowing it would be hard to find their coats quickly, he took her hand. "Come on, let's step outside for a second."

Joe led her out the gym doors to the schoolyard, wrapping his arms around Ellie and huddling under the awning and close to the building to keep her warm. "Tell me what's wrong."

She let out a breath, visible in the night air. "I saw Yvonne in the bathroom. She complimented me on my dress and I thought she was being nice for a change. Then she said it covered my baby bump real good, but in another month I'll be so fat you won't want me anymore."

Joe waited for her to say something else. After a half minute of silence he asked, "Is that all?"

"What do you mean, is that all? You think she's right, don't you?" Ellie's volume was escalating.

He was perplexed by her reaction. "So Yvonne said something nasty. Why are you surprised?"

"So you _do_ think I'm fat!"

"No, I think you're pregnant."

Her face looked so sad, as though she might cry. "I had a hard time finding a dress for tonight, Joe, because I'm getting so big. And Yvonne is such a gossip. Now everybody at school is going to know."

"People are figuring it out anyway. It wasn't like we could keep it hidden forever."

Ellie was quiet for a moment. "Are you still going to want me when I'm waddling around like a whale?"

He wanted to erase her sadness, make her smile. "Like a penguin. I don't think whales waddle."

Ellie scowled instead and then smacked him in the arm. He laughed. "I'm just kidding, Ellie! Yeah, I'm gonna want you! I was just thinking tonight when we were slow dancing and I felt the baby between us, how beautiful you are and how much I love you."

"And that won't change?"

"That won't change, Ellie."

She paused and licked her lips several times. He licked his as well, realizing how chapped they had become in the cold air. Ellie took his face in her hands and drew him toward her for a kiss. They sucked on each other's tongues for a long while, free to do so away from the watchful eyes of teachers. She broke the lip lock first, breathing heavily. "I'm freezing, Joe! Let's go back inside."

Joe put his arm around her and pulled her close. "Did you say anything to Yvonne after all that?"

She grinned. "I almost said, 'Screw you,' but I knew we'd end up scrapping. I didn't want to get in trouble or hurt the baby, so I just walked away instead."

Joe burst out laughing. His girlfriend was sweet but tough. He kissed her forehead, letting his lips linger for several seconds. "I really, really love you, Ellie. Don't ever doubt that."

When they reentered the gym, the DJ was announcing the last song of the evening. "Let's get everybody up on the dance floor for some _Trans Europe Express!"_ *

A cheer went up from the crowd, except for the French teacher who groused about all the students who correctly pronounced, "Rendezvous on the Champs-Élysées" but couldn't be bothered to learn anything in her class.

As he chanted, stepped and spun in time with his classmates during the line dance, Joe watched Ellie's face, which was glowing once more. He smiled at her, knowing without doubt that this had been the best Valentine's Day of his life.

* * *

**Author's note: Unfortunately, the incident with the sales clerk in the maternity store is all too likely to have happened. And since most teens are more likely to respond like Karima than Angie, had Angie not been there, it could have become a situation that would have reinforced the sales clerk's prejudices against black kids.**

*** Love you Down." Ready for the World, Geffen Records, 1986. You can listen to it here: **

**www. youtube. com/watch?v=S9N3gMJFKFk (Remove spaces after the dots)**

*** "Trans****Europe****Express," Kraftwerk, WEA Music, 1977. One of the interesting marvels of modern music is how this piece of German technopop became one of the most popular lines dances of 1980s urban America, and one of the influences of early house and hip-hop music. There were very few parties I attended in the '80s that didn't end with T.E.E. **

**Listen to "Trans Europe Express" here:**

**www. youtube. com/watch?v=LWlgbAc3bbM (Remove spaces after dots)**

**You can see part of the line dance here: **

**www. youtube. com/watch?v=tFSfEizI-vs (Remove spaces after dots)**


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

**Author's Note: This chapter is dedicated to my grandmother Nola, 1903-1991, of Cleveland, Mississippi. I can only imagine what her journey must have been.**

* * *

"What you working on today?" Janelle asked after Ellie had settled into a chair one afternoon in March for one of her many visits with Joe's mother.

Ellie pulled the current novel from English class out of her backpack. "We're reading a book called _Jane Eyre_ right now."

"I remember that book," Janelle said.

Ellie smiled. So far, she had yet to be assigned something Janelle hadn't already read.

"How you like it?"

Ellie made a face. "It's kind of depressing, actually. This poor girl, nothing seems to go right for her."

"How far you in it?"

"Not that far."

"By the time you get to the end, you'll see that yeah, that Jane had a bunch of rough stuff happen to her, but she doesn't let it tear her down. She uses it to make herself strong. It's one of the books that helped me a lot during that time when I got depressed after the kids' daddy left."

Ellie considered her words and suddenly giggled, and then felt horrified that Janelle might think she was ridiculing her struggles. "Oh Janelle, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to laugh at what you went through!"

Janelle smiled in amusement, thankfully. "What was so funny then?"

"I was just thinking about you reading all these books as a grownup. I can't imagine picking up a book like this to read if I didn't have to."

"Even though you sometimes find you like them after you read 'em?"

Ellie smiled back. "OK, that's true. Still, though. Reading a book like this might be interesting, but it's not _fun._"

"You know why I read books like this, Ellie? 'Cause I didn't get a chance to go to high school and do it. I figured I had to make up for the education I missed on my own when I got grown."

"How come you didn't go to high school?"

"Colored school in my little town only went up to eighth grade."

"How can that be? I thought everybody had to go to school until they were at least sixteen."

"Well, what the law said and what the state of Mississippi _did_ was two different things. Now, the white folks would tell you that if the black kids really wanted to go to high school, they could go to the ones in some of the bigger towns like Cleveland or Greenville. But they was some distance away from where my family lived and we didn't have no school bus. Some folks did send their kids to the bigger towns to live with relatives or with other good folks who was willing to open their homes. That's how my older brother Eddie and my next younger brother Franklin went to high school."

"How come you didn't go?"

Janelle laughed a little. "'Cause I was the oldest girl. There was seven of us, and my mama was dead, and my daddy needed me to cook and clean and take care of the younger children."

"That's so unfair!"

"My daddy or Mississippi?"

"Both!"

Janelle laughed again. It always surprised Ellie how easily she found humor in her troubles. "Let me tell you unfair, girl. You know how in 1954 the Supreme Court said they had to integrate the schools? Folks started pushing for it in places like my town where there was a white high school but no black one, saying it was against the law not to let black children attend the white school if they didn't have no other school to go to. So Mississippi up and changed the laws! All of a sudden, they no longer had a law saying all children had to go to school. That way, if black children wasn't allowed to go to school, no laws was broken. Ha!"

Ellie joined in with Janelle's infectious laughter, even though a part of her felt deeply uncomfortable. She knew a little about the Civil Rights Movement and the _Brown vs. Board of Education_ decision from Black History Month at school, but those events seemed so long ago, they were almost unreal to her. Now, however, she realized that Janelle had lived it.

"No wonder you wanted to move up to Meryton," she said.

"That's a story in and of itself."

"Will you tell me about it?"

Janelle became very quiet. Ellie had become used to the fact that Janelle's stillness indicated she was thinking.

"It started in the spring of 1964, when I was eighteen. We went to church one Sunday and the handsomest young man I had ever seen stood up to speak. He said his name was Lawrence Bennet and he was from SNCC."

_Joe's father,_ Ellie thought. "What's 'snick'?" she asked.

"Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Martin Luther King's group was the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and SNCC was the student group that worked with them. Larry said a bunch of college kids from SNCC were coming down to spend the summer in all the little towns around where we lived."

"Did Joe's father grow up around there, too?"

"Naw, he was from Memphis, and went to school at Fisk, a black college in Nashville. When he came to church that day, that was the first time I'd ever seen him. Larry was asking us to get ready for what they called 'Freedom Summer'."

"What was that?"

Janelle looked out into the distance, as if remembering. "Stuff for black folks was bad all over the South, but Mississippi was the worst. A lot of the young folks thought, if anything was ever gonna change, they had to really push it. So they organized all these college kids to come down to Mississippi for the summer to register black folks to vote, to try to get us our own political party, and to help us get some schooling and medical care and legal help and other things we didn't have."

"What was it like meeting him for the first time?" Ellie wanted to swallow the words right after she said them. Janelle might not exactly want to tell a _love story_ about her ex-husband.

Joe's mother smiled as usual. "A bunch of the girls, all they talked about was how fine Larry was, and I wasn't any better. But to me, it was more than what he looked like. I kept listening to what he said. He was so passionate about changing Mississippi, about helping black folks lift themselves up from the oppression we lived under. It made me realize that my whole life, I had just accepted the way things were, and I didn't want to do that anymore."

Ellie restrained herself from asking about Larry again, even though the romance was what she really wanted to hear. "So what happened when all the students came?"

"A lot of them needed places to stay, and my daddy invited Larry to stay with us. I don't know why Larry picked us, 'cause other folks invited him, too. Maybe 'cause we looked so raggedy and he wanted to stay with people who really needed help. Or maybe 'cause there was a bunch of white kids who came, and he knew it would be a easier for them to live with the folks who had a little more money than we did. But there was already eight of us in a three room house, and Larry added one more. Yeah, we was squished all right!" Janelle laughed again.

"How'd all y'all sleep in such a small house?"

"We had two bedrooms, each one with a big bed in it. When my mama was alive, she and my daddy and the little kids slept in one room, and the bigger kids slept in the other. When she died, all the boys went into his room, and all the girls moved into the other one."

"When did your mother die?" Ellie asked softly.

"When I was twelve." Janelle didn't seem to want to talk about it. "Anyway, the third room of our house was the kitchen/living room/everything else room. We had an old mattress in there we used as a couch and that's what Larry slept on."

"You only had three rooms? What about the bathroom?"

Janelle's mouth spread into a wide grin. "We had an outhouse, honey."

Ellie wrinkled her nose, making Janelle laugh harder. "Eww! How'd you take baths or showers?"

"We had a big old metal tub that we filled up with hot water once a week."

Ellie's eyes grew big in astonishment. "This sounds like _Little House on the Prairie,_ not something from this century!"

"Yeah, well, Mississippi was backwards, we was black, and we was poor. You put all that together, and Laura Ingalls probably lived better than we did."

"Longbourn City must seem like heaven compared to that."

Janelle thought about it for a moment. "Not necessarily. Folks down where I grew up did for one another, took care of each other. People can be more isolated up here. And kids wasn't running around shooting one another."

"You didn't have gangs?"

Joe's mother laughed a little. "Oh, we had gangs, all right. Gangs of white men who tried to make sure black folks knew their place and punished you when you got out of line. But when you were a child, a lot of the grownups tried to shield you from that. So you could grow up for a long time, accepting that there was things you couldn't do or have 'cause you was black, but in the meantime the grownups took good care of you and the children made their own fun. Sometimes, though, that wasn't enough. When I was nine, a young boy came down from Chicago to visit his kin, staying in a town 'bout an hour away from us. Supposedly, he whistled at a white woman, and the woman's husband and some other men beat him, shot him and drowned him."

Ellie's eyes widened. "Oh my God!"

Janelle wasn't laughing now. "Yeah. A lot of grown folks would tell us after that, remember Emmett Till and watch what you say and do around white folks. Emmett Till was the boy's name. But still, how bad it really was didn't seem real to me until that summer when all the college kids came down."

"What happened when they came?"

"One of the big things they was trying to do was getting people to register to vote. The white folks had all kinds of tricks to keep black folks from voting, like having to pay a whole lot of money or tests you had to take that no one could pass. Larry was one of the leaders with SNCC, and he would get groups of black folks together to go down to the county courthouse to register. They would practice with folks beforehand, teaching them how to fill out the forms and answer the questions, and how to be calm and firm and not act scared. But the more folks went down to register, the more the white folks tried to scare them off. They would circle around you with guns in their hands, and some folks got beat up trying to go in, or if they did make it in, coming out."

"Did you get to register?"

"I was too young, honey."

"But you were eighteen!"

"Voting age was twenty-one back then. But I did get to participate in Freedom Summer in another way. Larry told my daddy that they were starting a Freedom School down at the church, and he should let us kids go. I went with my sister Debra, who was fifteen, and my brothers Cory and Daniel, who was fourteen and eleven, and my baby sister Nola, who was eight."

"You went to school in the _summertime_?" Ellie asked in surprise.

Janelle smiled. "That was actually the best time for it. In the spring we were all busy planting cotton, and picking it in the fall, but in the summer it was mostly just growing so there wasn't as much work to do. A lot of the young women who came down taught in the Freedom Schools, because it was a little less dangerous than some of the other SNCC projects. Although not always. Some Freedom Schools got shot at or burned down."

"What did they teach you?"

Janelle started beaming. "It was the best schooling of my life! In the colored school, we mostly got old books that the white schools discarded, and most of it wasn't very interesting. But here… they had us reading things by Zora Neale Huston, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, W.E.B. Dubois and Langston Hughes. Before that I didn't even know black folks was allowed to write books."

"I know who Langston Hughes is," Ellie said. "We went on a field trip to see a play, _A_ _Raisin in the Sun,_ when I was in tenth grade. The next day, my teacher read us a poem by him that the name of the play came from."

Janelle pursed her lips. "I sometimes think that poem was written for Larry."

Wondering what she meant, Ellie tried to recall the words. It was about not fulfilling dreams, she remembered… and having them explode?

"I was always good in school, but that summer was when I really started to love learning. It wasn't just the books they gave us, it was the questions they asked and the talks we had. They wanted us to learn how to _think,_ to question the way things was instead of just accepting it, and decide for ourselves the way we wanted the world to be."

Janelle's voice was becoming more distant, but Ellie was rapt. "Thinking" in her own school meant focusing your mind on getting the right answers. When had her teachers ever encouraged her to question the way things were, or decide anything for herself about the world?

"Larry did that for me, too," Janelle went on, more softly. "Almost every night, we talked after everybody else was sleep, and he'd ask me about what I was learning, and he'd tell me how the other projects was going."

Ellie grinned. "So you stayed up late to talk to him?"

Janelle smiled softly. "I kind of had to. I always had chores to finish, or food to prepare for the next day. Larry usually came back late, because the SNCC workers always had meetings at night. He'd get home, and here I was working in what was his bedroom. He didn't have no choice but to talk to me."

"Is that how you fell in love?" Ellie ventured to ask.

Janelle nodded. "I told him things I never told nobody. I don't know how to describe the emotions of that summer. Everything was scary, but also exciting. Like being at the top of a roller coaster just before you go downhill. You're holding on tight, but anything seems possible. I remember the day my daddy finally registered to vote. He had a smile on his face like I hadn't seen since before my mama died. I was so happy that night when I told Larry about it, and I knew he understood, not just about my daddy exercising his rights, but about my family finding hope again. That night was the first time Larry kissed me."

Ellie hesitated a while before voicing her next question. "Janelle, can I ask you something personal?" When the woman nodded, she continued. "The night I was here after Christmas, you said your daddy called you a whore, too. Joe said it was because you were pregnant with Haley before you were married. Is that true?"

Janelle sighed and nodded. "Larry and I… we knew we was in love, but he didn't try nothing with me other than kissing, out of respect for my daddy. But then one night in August…" She closed her eyes. "…one night, Larry came home madder than I had ever seen him. He started punching the mattress so hard he made holes in it because that was the only thing he could hit that wouldn't wake everybody else up. Then he stopped and looked at it and I think he remembered that my family already had so little, and he was tearing up one of the few things we had. He put his head in his hands and started crying."

"Why?" Ellie asked, alarmed.

Janelle was staring into space again. "There was these three young men, two white boys from up north, and a black boy from Mississippi. They were all working for Freedom Summer, and they had disappeared back in June. Larry had trained with these young men, they were his friends. That day… that day the SNCC folks in our neck of the woods got word that their bodies had been found. All of 'em was shot, but they had beat the black boy to a pulp."

"Oh!" Ellie gasped, covering her mouth in horror.

"I sat down next to Larry and put my arms around him. When he stopped crying, he started kissing me, and we lay down together on that busted up mattress, and I wanted to take this man, this man who had been so strong for everybody else, I wanted to take his pain away. We had to be quiet to not wake everybody, and I remember pressing my mouth into his shoulder, both when it hurt and when it didn't, so I wouldn't cry out. The next day he felt so bad, 'cause I was a virgin and he was disrespecting my daddy who had opened up his house to him, but I kept telling Larry I wanted to. Still, he wouldn't let us go that far again after that."

"So you got pregnant the first time you did it, too." Ellie said, half question and half statement. But the similarities ended there, she thought with some shame. She hadn't been trying to comfort Joe's pain, but to ease her own. And her own was what? Insecurity because her boyfriend hadn't called?

Janelle nodded. "I didn't know, though, 'til after the summer was over and Larry was already back in Nashville."

Ellie had so many more questions she wanted to ask, but was a little overwhelmed by the horrors Janelle and Larry had experienced, and embarrassed by how petty her own troubles seemed in comparison.

Janelle laughed suddenly. "Here I am telling you all this, and I didn't get to the question you asked, how I came to Meryton."

"Do you still want to tell me?"

Janelle smiled and reached out for Ellie's hand, which she squeezed gently. "Not today, honey. That's enough for one day. But we'll talk again, and I'll tell you the rest. I promise."

* * *

**Author's Note: here are some of the historical references discussed by Ellie and Janelle.**

• In 1956, the state of Mississippi abolished compulsory school attendance in order to not have to comply with the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision which outlawed segregation in the public schools.

• The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), was a student-led group that played a major role in the Civil Rights Movement. The 1964 Mississippi Summer Project (Freedom Summer) was one of several major achievements for SNCC.

• Emmett Till was a 14-year-old boy from Chicago who was murdered in Money, Mississippi in 1955, allegedly for flirting with a white woman. His mother insisted on an open casket during the funeral to expose the brutality of his murder.

• The 26th amendment to the U.S Constitution, adopted in 1971, lowered the voting age to 18.

• The Freedom Schools were temporary, free alternative education programs for black youth established as part of Freedom Summer. Their purposes included fostering leadership and critical thinking as well as academic skills.

• _A Raisin in the Sun_ is a 1959 play by Lorraine Hansberry about the hopes and dreams of a black family living in a Chicago ghetto during the 1950s. The title comes from a poem, "A Dream Deferred," by African-American writer Langston Hughes, which begins, "What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?"

• The three young men whose bodies were found were James Chaney, a 21-year-old black man from Meridian, Mississippi; Andrew Goodman, a 20-year-old white Jewish anthropology student from New York; and Michael Schwerner, a 24-year-old white Jewish CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) organizer and former social worker also from New York. The men disappeared on June 21, 1964, and their bodies were found on August 4th of that year. The 1988 movie _Mississippi Burning_ is about the FBI investigation into the murders.


	16. Chapter 16

**Author's note: this chapter and the following one are rather sad.**

*************

**Chapter 16**

For a lot of people, April 1st is a fun day of playing pranks on friends and trying not to get fooled in return.

But that's not the case for many high school seniors in the United States.

Instead, they spend the day anxiously waiting for the final bell in order to race home from school. For some, like Joe, the wait was even longer, until after his shift at Kmart ended at nine.

He arrived at home to find his mother in bed, his sister at work, and his brother lying on the sofa watching TV. "The mail?" were the first words out of his mouth.

Pookie pointed to the table. "All for you, kid."

As his brother indicated, six envelopes were lying on the table, all addressed to Joe. He snatched up one and ripped it open. The University of Meryton… an acceptance letter. He quickly opened three more, all of which also offered him admission to their schools for the upcoming fall semester.

He saved the two he was most nervous about for last. The first was from Meryton State. After missing the interview back in January, he had left several messages for the admissions officer, who never called him back. Joe even took a chance by taking the bus downtown to the campus, but the man who'd given him his card wasn't in.

Upon learning that Joe was a student in the Meryton Public Schools, a woman working in the admissions office explained what he already knew: that Meryton State officials pay special visits to all the public schools in the city in order to make the interview process easier, since MPS students were often less knowledgeable about college admissions procedures than their peers in private and suburban schools. "I know that Longbourn High School has had their interview day already," she said. "But if you had a legitimate absence that day, you can bring us a note from your guidance counselor, and we'll schedule an interview for you here on campus."

Meeting with Mrs. Molina to obtain said note was easier said than done—not that he was even certain she would provide it, since she clearly knew Joe had been in school that day. A single guidance counselor supported each class at Longbourn, which had close to 800 seniors. Mrs. Molina was assisting about 130 students applying to college and helping most of the rest identify job or training prospects, while trying to stay on top of those who were in danger of not graduating on time, a much bigger group than it should have been. Before Joe knew it, weeks had passed without him connecting with her.

With trepidation, he opened the envelope and scanned it quickly: _ Regret to inform you… incomplete application… welcome to apply again in the coming year. _He threw the letter onto the table and swore.

Pookie looked over. "What's up?"

"Meryton State turned me down."

"That sucks."

_Sucks is right,_ Joe thought. His discouragement made him not want to open the final envelope. _Four schools,_ he told himself. _You just got accepted to four schools. _

He took a deep breath and opened the remaining envelope, reading: _Congratulations! We are pleased to offer you admission to the freshman class at Kenyon College for the Fall of 1987._

Joe whooped. This definitely made up for the rejection from Meryton State!

The next few days brought more mail, larger envelopes from the schools containing information about enrollment, orientation, housing and financial aid. Mr. Hunter was thrilled with the news and took him out to lunch on Saturday to celebrate, asking Joe to bring his acceptance packages with him.

"Your mother must be so proud of you, Joe," Mr. Hunter said while looking everything over. "And so am I. I'm very, _very_ proud of you."

"Thanks." Joe couldn't stop smiling.

"And look at this financial aid package Kenyon offered you! It's almost a full ride."

"I know! I was surprised that they offered me a lot more than U of Meryton, even though Kenyon costs more."

"That's often the case. Sometimes the more expensive schools have greater resources to provide their students. At least they made your decision easy."

"How?"

Mr. Hunter grinned. "Joe, when your top choice college gives you the most financial aid, there's nothing to decide. You tell them yes."

Joe stopped smiling. He was excited about getting accepted to Kenyon—it was a definite ego boost—but deciding which school to attend was a lot more complicated.

"You're not nervous about going, are you? They accepted you because they're fully confident you can handle the work. I _know_ you can do this."

Joe shook his head. "No… I'm just not sure I want to leave Meryton."

"It _is _scary to move away from home, but you won't be the first student to make that journey."

"I'm not scared to move away, but I have a lot of responsibilities here."

"Are you thinking about your mother? Mahalia and Randolph will still be here, taking care of her. I am certain your mother wants you to fulfill your dreams, Joe."

"It's not just my mom. It's Ellie, too."

Mr. Hunter frowned. "I still don't believe this is going to be more than a high school romance. But if it turns out that I'm wrong, other people have had successful long-distance relationships."

Joe didn't answer. He hadn't told Mr. Hunter about the pregnancy because… well, because he knew how Mr. Hunter would probably react.

"Joe, I know you love Ellie, but this is your future we're talking about. You can't let a dating relationship derail you."

It was time to tell him. "She's going to have a baby."

Mr. Hunter was quiet for a second. "Ellie?"

Joe nodded.

"Your baby?"

He nodded again.

His mentor shook his head. "I _knew _this could happen! Why do you think I was so hard on you last summer? Aw, Joe!" He leaned forward and placed his forehead in his hands.

Joe almost apologized, but stopped himself in time. Apologize for what? He hadn't done anything to Mr. Hunter. The consequences of the pregnancy were his and Ellie's alone.

"Do you think she did this on purpose?"

"Don't even go there, Mr. Hunter! Ellie and I _both_ messed up. It's not more her fault than it is mine."

Mr. Hunter looked up, his expression grim. "My wife would probably call me a male chauvinist pig for saying this, but I have to. Joe, I remember being an eighteen year old boy. Your hormones are going haywire and you walk around most of the time hoping to find a hole to stick your thing into. Unfortunately, it's the girls who have to be the gatekeepers."

Joe just stared. What was he talking about?

"I know it's unfair, but it's often up to the girls to stop the boys. And the girls who are the most effective at doing so are the ones with goals and a future, the ones who know they have a lot to lose by getting pregnant. A girl like Ellie, who doesn't have that? She's not going to stop you. Why would she?"

Joe's heart suddenly jolted in his chest. A vision came to him: him pausing and Ellie saying, "Do it!" just before he entered her.

"Listen to me, Joe! What I said before still applies. Yes, you messed up, but don't give up everything you've worked so hard for!"

"_She's not going to stop you. Why would she?" "Do it!" _ The words were swimming around Joe's head, making it hard for him to think. "My baby…" he finally said. "What about my kid?"

"The best thing you can do for that kid is get your degree!"

"But Kenyon is more than two hours away!"

"So what? You won't be in school forever! You have the chance of a lifetime with this acceptance to Kenyon. Don't blow it!"

Joe wasn't sure how to answer. His brain felt addled, and his stomach twisted around the seed of doubt that Ellie's pregnancy wasn't an accident. "I'll think about it," he managed to say.

* * *

Ellie dug through the box in her closet, searching for a photocopied document she wasn't even sure was there. Most of her old notebooks and school assignments made it into this box, never to be looked at again. But she desperately hoped she had retained one particular piece of paper.

It was almost eleven o'clock at night, and Joe hadn't called her. Again. His calls were becoming less and less frequent. Doing a lot of studying, he said. Mr. Hunter had told him that slacking off after getting your college acceptances was a big mistake many students made, because some schools will rescind your admittance if your grades dropped. Plus, Joe was working long hours, trying to earn more money for college. He wouldn't need much for one school that was far away, but for several that were local, he would. How could Ellie complain about that?

Except that even when she saw him in school, Joe seemed distant, not as sweet and affectionate as he used to be. Ellie wasn't sure what was happening with her boyfriend, but Janelle's stories about her relationship with Larry kept coming back to her.

An ugly argument with her father, being kicked out of her home, calling Larry in Nashville from a payphone—that's what Janelle had been through. Yes, Ellie's father had gotten ugly, too, but she still had her mother. Janelle had been motherless and alone.

Larry had sent her money for a bus ticket to Memphis, halfway between Greenville and Nashville. He would drive down from school and meet her there, take her to his parents' house—

Aha! She found it. Ellie smoothed out the page, a photocopy from a book of poetry given to her by her tenth grade English teacher. She sat down on her bed and began to read.

_What happens to a dream deferred?_

_Does it dry up _

_like a raisin in the sun?_

Larry had an uncle who was a minister, who could marry them. Janelle could stay with his parents until she had the baby while Larry finished up his junior year. He promised her he would always take care of her.

_Or fester like a sore-- _

_And then run?_

Janelle had cried during the entire bus ride, because she knew leaving meant she might not see her sisters and brothers again, especially Nola. Nola had been two when their mother died, so her eldest sister was the only mother she could remember. _Her baby, _Janelle called Nola. In that, too, Ellie was better off than Joe's mom. Even though Daddy wasn't talking to her, he still allowed her to speak to Damien and Nicole each week.

_Does it stink like rotten meat? _

Things didn't work out the way Larry planned. His parents had been furious. They were respected members of the black community, well-off owners of one of the largest black funeral homes in Memphis. They were proud of Larry's activism—after all, his uncle was a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and a friend of Dr. King's. But they had great expectations for their only son, and bringing home a poor, pregnant, uneducated country girl wasn't one of them. If he married her, they told him, they wouldn't continue to pay for his college education.

_Or crust and sugar over-- _

_like a syrupy sweet?_

It didn't matter, Larry declared. What difference would an art degree make in a nation teeming with injustice? By leaving school, he could take care of the woman he loved and the child they were expecting, while striving to make meaningful change in the world. He had some money in his bank account, and friends back in Nashville who could help them find a place to live. He'd find a job, and would still be able to dedicate his free time to his work with SNCC.

_Maybe it just sags _

_like a heavy load._

Ellie hadn't talked to Joe much lately, but she had received a surprise telephone call a short while earlier that had sent her on the frantic search for the poem. Her mother knocked on her door and merely said, "It's for you," before handing her the phone, perhaps worried she wouldn't take the call otherwise.

"Hi, baby," she heard a once familiar voice say.

"Daddy," she responded coldly.

"How are you?"

"What do you care? You haven't talked to me in more than six months."

Her father was quiet for a moment. "I know," he said softly. "But I need to talk to you now."

Ellie didn't answer. If he wanted a conversation, he'd have to be the one to speak.

Daddy cleared his throat. "I um… uh, your mother asked me to look into something, and I did, and it's not good, but I have to tell you anyway."

Ellie swallowed hard, trying not to feel afraid at his suggestion of bad news.

"You may not know this, but you and your brother are covered for your health care under my military insurance. It's good pretty much anywhere in the world, until you turn twenty-one."

She didn't know that, but why was he telling her?

"It covers all your prenatal care and it will cover the delivery. Your mother asked me whether or not it will cover the baby, too. I looked into it, and it doesn't."

Ellie blinked. "What does that mean?"

"It means that unless you or that boy gets a job that provides insurance for the baby, then if it gets sick—"

"She."

Her father paused. "What?"

"She, Daddy, not 'it.' They told me I'm having a girl."

"She," he said softly. "It means that if _she_ gets sick or even just to take her to the doctor for regular visits and shots, you'll have to pay for it yourself."

"Will that cost a lot of money?'

He laughed harshly. "Yes, Ellie, yes, it'll cost a lot of money! This is why you and that boy should have used your heads before you got yourselves into this mess!"

Ellie felt tears rising, but she wouldn't give him the satisfaction. "Don't start this again, Daddy, or I swear I'll hang up!"

Her father exhaled loudly. "Look, Ellie, the last thing I want to do is argue with you. I called because you and this… young man, need to start preparing yourself for when this baby comes. And one thing you need to do is figure out how you're going to pay for its… for _her_ medical."

Ellie bit her lip. "How do I do that?"

"The best thing is for that boy to get a job that provides family medical benefits."

"Stop calling him, _'that boy'_! His name is Joe, Daddy, and he already has a job!"

"With medical?"

Ellie felt her defenses dropping, and fear rising in its place. "I don't know."

She heard her father breathing into the phone. "You need to talk to him about it. And there's something else I need to tell you."

_More?_ Ellie thought, closing her eyes.

"I'm being sent to South Korea. I'll probably be there for two years. Florence and the kids will be able to come with me."

"What?!"

"It's not like Lebanon, baby. It's a much safer place."

The tears she had been holding back suddenly gushed forth from her eyes. "You don't call me for six months, and now you tell me you're about to leave the country!"

"We don't leave until January, and I plan to come visit you before then."

Ten minutes earlier, Ellie would have told him don't bother. But now, with the prospect of not seeing him for two years, she realized how painfully she missed him. "Daddy, why do you have to go?"

"I'm sorry, baby, it's my job."

"How can you leave me again? Don't you know how much I need you?" she whimpered.

"I'm sorry," he repeated.

"How come you didn't call me, Daddy? For more than six months!"

"Because I blamed myself," he said so softly, she almost didn't hear it.

She sniffed back her tears, some of her anger returning. "I thought you said I was a whore. Sounds like you blamed me. So how is it your fault?"

Her father was silent for some time before he spoke again. "Ellie… I know some girls, when their father isn't around, they end up looking to some boy for the love their father should be giving them. I wanted to stay angry with you because it was easier than facing the fact that I should have been there for you, and I wasn't."

Ellie shook her head. "No, Daddy, no! I _love _Joe. Yeah, we were stupid, but what we did was because we love each other. It had nothing to do with you."

Daddy was quiet again. "I believe it might have more to do with me than you think." he said finally. "But Ellie, I _am_ sorry. I should have called you. It may not seem like it, but I do love you. And I _will_ visit sometime soon, I promise."

Their conversation ended not long thereafter; it was too agonizing to continue. Ellie lay down on her bed and sobbed. Her father was leaving the country, and Joe would be leaving, too, to go away to college. Maybe that's why he was pulling away from her, so it would hurt less when the time came.

That's what had happened with Janelle and Larry, too. They didn't have loud fights the way Mama and Daddy had had. Instead, Larry had slowly drifted away. Life in Nashville was tough, but he, Janelle and Haley got by. Then, as several civil rights gains were achieved that had a great impact on the south, Larry, like many activists, decided to move north, where racism and discrimination were more subtle but no less real. He chose Meryton, a city with a large and vibrant, but segregated and disproportionately low-income black community. He worked by day for a small organization fighting against _redlining_ and other discriminatory practices, and by night as a security guard.

Janelle got pregnant again soon after their move, and had two more children back to back. Her lifetime of poverty, the cold Ohio winters, and the exhaustion of caring for three small children took a toll on her health. She was constantly sick and unable to work, and the family struggled to survive on the salaries from Larry's two jobs. With Larry working most of the time, she had no one to turn to. All of their friends were in Mississippi and Tennessee, and being house-bound made it nearly impossible to find new ones.

Larry was having a difficult time, too. Facing less obvious but equally intransigent racism, the civil rights struggle in places like Meryton lacked the clarity, the sense of unity, and the faith that the moral arm of the universe truly did "bend toward justice" that he and his compatriots had had in the south. As Janelle's medical bills mounted, he was finding it harder and harder to support them all. For a young man who had spent his life with everyone expecting greatness from him, failing both his mission and his family was more than he could bear.

Larry had dreamt of changing the world. Ellie's dreams were much smaller. She just wanted someone who would love her forever. Her father hadn't, and Joe wouldn't either. Larry had left, Alvin had left, and now Joe would leave. The romance novels she had always wanted to live out were just that—fiction. Maybe "dreams come true" was only fantasy, whether your hopes were big or small.

That was why she had searched for the poem, which she now read again.

_What happens to a dream deferred?_

_Does it dry up _

_like a raisin in the sun? _

_Or fester like a sore-- _

_And then run? _

_Does it stink like rotten meat? _

_Or crust and sugar over-- _

_like a syrupy sweet?_

_Maybe it just sags _

_like a heavy load._

_Or does it explode?_

* * *

**Author's Note: **

* The civil rights gains mentioned above include the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which banned discrimination in employment practices and public accommodations, and the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed practices that disenfranchised black voters.

* According to Wikipedia, "Redlining is the practice of denying or increasing the cost of services such as banking, insurance, access to jobs, access to health care, or even supermarkets to residents in certain, often racially determined, areas. The term 'redlining' was coined in the late 1960s by community activists in Chicago. It describes the practice of marking a red line on a map to delineate the area where banks would not invest; later the term was applied to discrimination against a particular group of people (usually by race or sex) no matter the geography."

* The quote, "Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice," is from a speech given by Martin Luther King, Jr. at the Tenth Anniversary Convention of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Atlanta on August 16, 1967.

* As noted in the previous chapter, the poem "A Dream Deferred," was written by Langston Hughes.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

"What's going on with Ellie?" Ma had asked him. Repeatedly.

He didn't know. Did he care? Yeah, he did. But he didn't know what to say to Ellie anymore, and right now he was too stressed out about everything else he needed to deal with. He had several cards on his dresser at home that he needed to check either _Yes_ or _No _on, letting only _one_ college know that he would accept their admission. The cards were due by May 1st, which was the end of the week, and he still hadn't decided which one to pick.

He didn't know what to do about Ellie. He had been trying to work up the nerve to talk to her about the questions Mr. Hunter had raised, but just when he felt courageous enough to start the conversation, she started avoiding him. And in the last week, he hadn't seen her at school at all. It was true that he hadn't called much lately, but he really _had_ been busy, and she hadn't called him either. However, her absences from school worried him. He hoped she wasn't sick, and that nothing was wrong with the baby.

Yet when he finally called, Ellie wouldn't talk to him, reminding him of that painful period back in September when she had dropped him with no word of explanation. Ms. Jameson assured him that both Ellie and the baby were fine. "But," she added firmly, "you need to come see her, Joe."

He had been avoiding it, but now his mother insisted on it. Ellie hadn't spent time with her in more than two weeks, and Ma really missed her. For his mother, he would push past his own anxiety and pay a visit to the Jameson home.

He arrived on Tuesday evening at the same time as Ms. Jameson. "I'm glad you're here," she told him. "Maybe you can talk some sense into her."

"What do you mean?"

Ellie's mother gritted her teeth. "I'll let her tell you."

Ellie said, "Come in," in response to Joe's knock on her bedroom door. She was lying down on her bed, with the radio playing softly in the background. She was dressed in a huge T-shirt and shorts, and her hair was splayed around her head.

"I was worried about you, and my mother's been asking about you," he said. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," she answered glumly.

"And the baby?"

"Kicking. Keeping me up at night."

Joe grinned. "So you're tired, huh? Scoot over."

Ellie moved to make room for him, and he lay down beside her. He kissed her, and she pulled back as his tongue pressed against her lips. Catching a whiff of her breath, Joe realized she probably hadn't brushed her teeth that day. He stroked her cheek instead. "I miss you."

Ellie lowered her eyes.

"What's wrong? It seems like you're more than just tired."

She sighed. "I'm ugly and fat, too."

"You'll never be ugly, Ellie."

"But I am fat, huh? You can't deny that."

Joe laughed. "You're _pregnant._ It's not the same thing as being fat."

"I look like a whale. And my boobs are huge. I can't find a bra to fit me."

Joe reached under her shirt, where she was, indeed, braless. Yeah, they were huge all right—he couldn't even fit one in his hand. But that was a plus, in his mind. "Is that supposed to be a problem?" he joked, tweaking her nipple.

"It's not funny, Joe! I can't go out like this!"

"Sure, you can! You just need to brush your teeth and comb your hair!"

"So my hair's a mess and my breath stinks?"

"Um… yeah," he said, still trying to keep things light. He massaged her hair down, and it sprung back up in all directions. "But you can do something about those."

She scowled, and Joe stopped smiling. "Come on, honey, you can't stay in bed like this. You have to get your schoolwork finished so you can graduate, in case the baby comes early."

"I'm not going back to school, Joe."

He stared at her for several seconds. "What do you mean, you're not going back?"

"I'm eighteen. Nobody can make me stay in school."

"Are you saying you're dropping out?"

She nodded, and Joe gaped at her, disbelieving. So _that's _what her mother meant. "Ellie, that's nuts! You're only six weeks away from graduation! You can't come this far and give up!"

"Not everyone cares about school the way you do."

"Not everyone wants to go to college, but it's _stupid_ to not finish high school!"

"Well, maybe I'm just stupid. I always knew that's what you thought."

Joe groaned. "Ellie, don't say that. You know that's not what I meant, and not what I think."

"It's what _I_ think. I'm stupid, and I don't care. I'm tired every day, I have to pee constantly, I have indigestion all the time, I'm bored, and I'm sick of school!"

He wasn't sure what to say about the fatigue and bladder and indigestion issues. But still, it was only six more weeks! Couldn't she stick it out for a little while longer? "You don't mean that. You care about what people think because you're pregnant and you've gained weight. But the people who love you don't care. And if anyone else doesn't like it, well, forget them!"

"It's _not_ about what other people think! I wake up every day and I have to force myself to go to school, thinking the whole time how much I hate it and don't want to be there."

"Nobody says you have to love it. Just get through it, go to class and do your homework and take your final tests for six more weeks. Damn, anybody can do that!"

Ellie suddenly lashed out at him. "You don't get it! The things that used to make school fun for me—cheerleading and hanging out what my friends—I _lost _all that this year! I never loved my classes like you did! Nobody at that stupid school ever taught _me_ how to think! So two weekends ago I realized I don't have to do this anymore! And I'm not!"

Joe sat up. "You're just going to feel sorry for yourself? You think you're the only one who's ever lost something? My mother's losing her damn _eyesight! _And she's in pain every day, but you don't hear her complaining!" Not the mention all the things _he'd _given up, he thought to himself.

"No, your mother's a saint!" she spat at him while rising to a sitting position.

Joe froze and then glared at her. "How could you talk about my mother like that, after all she's done for you?"

"I complimented her, didn't I? Everybody's not as strong as she is. I know _I_ can't live up to her standards."

Joe kept his mouth shut, trying to contain his fury. Her comment about his mother was a low blow he hadn't thought Ellie capable of.

"Go home, Joe."

"You always do that. Whenever you don't like the way things are going between us, you try to get rid of me."

"I'd think you'd want that, right? That way you can go off to Kenyon and forget all about me."

"Is _that_ what this is about?" He reached for Ellie to put his arms around her, and she pulled away. "Ellie, I haven't decided yet about Kenyon, but whatever I do, I'll always be there for you and the baby! You _know_ that!"

"That's what you're saying now."

"You don't believe me?" He stopped and stared at her, his heart thundering in his chest. "This was your plan all along, wasn't it? You didn't want me going off to school, so you got pregnant to keep me here."

Ellie stared back and then laughed bitterly. "Oh my God, I've been so stupid! So this was _your _plan all along? Make me a bunch of promises you never planned to keep? And turn around and blame me for everything? Go home, Joe."

"No!"

"Joe, please, _please _go home. I don't want you here! Now get away from me! Please…"

Joe grabbed her arm, and she pulled away once more. "I _mean_ it, Joe! This is your last chance to leave before I call the police!"

"It's like that, huh?" Joe exhaled angrily. "Fine. I'll leave." He slammed her bedroom door on the way out. Yeah, he was being childish, but he figured she deserved it.

As soon as he got home, he grabbed the card for Kenyon and checked the "Yes" box.

Ellie started banging on her pillow as soon as Joe left. Everything about him made her feel like a stupid fuck-up! He would have figured that out sooner or later and left her anyway; breaking it off with him first was easier, and hurt less.

She felt awful about her harsh words about Janelle, whom she adored. But in a way, what she said was true. Janelle was the strongest and bravest person she had ever met. When Ellie thought about everything the woman had suffered, and yet she still remained so loving and positive, she knew she was trash in comparison.

Ellie remembered talking to her about how well her kids had turned out, and Janelle just saying she was blessed. She choked on a sob. Would she be as blessed? Or would she screw up little Janelle Arlene—Arlene after her own mother—as badly as she herself was screwed up?

The only way she could get through the remaining days of this pregnancy without going crazy was to not think about what a horrible mother she would be. Her mother couldn't force her to go to school, and Ellie had no doubt that were she not pregnant, Mama would have thrown her out on the street by now. But for the baby's sake, Ellie was allowed to remain at home, and she spent her days in pure escapism, watching TV, eating junk food, and losing herself in trashy novels.

About two weeks after the last time he saw Ellie, Joe spent the evening in the library studying for his final exams. When he returned home, he found his brother wearing a look of anguish. "Where have you been?" he shouted. "We have to go!"

"What's going on?" Joe asked.

"Ma's in the hospital."

On the bus, Pookie filled him in. Ma had slipped and fallen in the bathroom earlier that day. Haley had come home and found her in severe pain, and had called an ambulance to take her to Meryton General.

The boys rushed into the emergency room and were told they wouldn't be allowed to see their mother. They waited for hours, among wailing children, a muttering drunk, and several silent, sad people, with no word about what was happening. Pookie tried to buy some chips from the snack machine, and ended up kicking the machine violently when it swallowed his money until a security guard threatened to make him leave.

About one in the morning, Haley emerged into the waiting room and found her brothers. "How's Ma?" they clamored. "Can we see her?"

Haley rubbed her face and shook her head. "Not tonight. They admitted her. Let's go home and we'll talk about it."

When they reached her truck, she tossed Joe the keys. "Be very careful," she said. "We can't afford to get stopped."

Joe was surprised, but he understood. Although he was unlicensed, he was able to drive. Haley was exhausted and Pookie was angry, so he was probably the safest driver among them right now.

When they arrived at home, Haley made a strong pot of coffee and asked the boys to sit down with her at the table. "She fractured her hip," she told them. "She'll have to have surgery. They're hoping that they can fix it by putting some rods in her hip, but if not, they'll have to give her a hip replacement, and that's more dangerous. Plus she has neuropathy from the diabetes, and that complicates everything. It makes her more at risk for infection."

"Aw, FUCK!" Pookie yelled, and banged on the table.

Haley put her hand on his fist. "Pookie, you _have_ to calm down. This will not help anything."

Pookie's face tightened into an expression somewhere between rage and tears.

"What does all this mean, Haley?" Joe asked.

"After the surgery, she'll have to have rehab. But the doctor told us to be prepared. Because of all her other health issues, there's a good chance she might not be able to walk anymore." Before Pookie could react, Haley and Joe simultaneously placed their hands on his arms.

"So if she can't walk, what does that mean?" Joe asked, his voice rising.

Haley shook her head. "For one thing, she won't be able to live here anymore. We need to start looking for some sort of handicap housing for her to move into when she finishes rehab."

Pookie jumped up and Haley leaped to her feet a split second later, blocking his access to the front door. Her brother clenched his fists. "Get the fuck out of my way, Haley."

Hearing Pookie's menacing tone, Joe stood up beside Haley. Other than playful wrestling, he had never fought his brother, but he was prepared to do so now.

"You're too damn angry, Pookie," Haley said. "You are _not_ leaving this apartment to go out into the streets and do something stupid!"

"Ma needs all of us right now!" Joe added. "Don't make us have to worry about you, too!"

Pookie stared at his siblings for a long time until the brittle mask on his face started to break. Haley, several inches shorter than her brother, put her arm around his waist and squeezed. "Why don't you go to bed?" she said. "In fact, we all need to go to bed."

Joe's mother had hip replacement surgery two days later. Joe went to school and forced himself to concentrate on his final assignments and tests. He asked Mike for time off from work so he could visit his mother after school, and given all the extra hours he had accumulated recently, Mike was willing to grant it.

The surgery went successfully, but Ma was in an incredible amount of pain, and thus was very groggy from the pain medications pumping into her veins. Her dark skin looked ashen, and her lips appeared chapped and white. But she recognized her children and seemed happy to see them when they came by.

Three days post-surgery, after his mother had been moved from intensive care into a regular room, Joe left Ma's bedside to find a pop machine. He was about to drop his quarters in when a nearby elevator door opened, and Ellie walked out.

He could only stare at her. She looked really good. She was huge, which wasn't surprising since she was in her ninth month of pregnancy. But her hair was done, and even though she didn't have on any makeup, Joe was struck anew by how pretty Ellie was. He wished that her appearance and presence didn't have such an effect on him.

"Hi, Joe," she said when she noticed him.

"Hi," he replied nervously. "What are you doing here?"

"Haley called me." She looked around, and then to the floor, and then back at him. "Will you take me to your mother's room?"

He nodded and turned, and she followed. Ellie stopped short as soon as she entered, shocked, no doubt, by all the bandages, tubes and wires attached to his mother.

He watched Ellie take a breath and walk forward. When she reached the bed, Haley said, "Touch her and let her know you're there."

"Janelle, it's me, Ellie," she said gently, taking his mother's fingers in her own.

"Hi, honey," Ma whispered. "You came to see me."

Ellie leaned over awkwardly, her bulging belly preventing her from getting closer and hearing better. Pookie brought a chair to her and helped her sit down, giving Joe a pointed look as if to tell him that he should have been the one doing that.

"How you doin'?" Ma said.

"I'm good. The baby has dropped, so I feel like I have to go to the bathroom all the time now."

Ma chuckled lightly. "I remember that." The effort to laugh cost her, and she coughed painfully. Haley moved a paper cup of water toward her, placing the end of the straw between her mother's lips.

After she had taken a sip, Ma tried to speak again. "Don't give up, honey, you hear?"

Ellie nodded.

"Be strong! Your baby needs you."

Ellie nodded again, stroking Janelle's hand as she closed her eyes to rest.

A short while later, Ellie rose to leave. "Walk her to the damn elevator, man!" Pookie hissed at him when she exited the room.

Joe pivoted and ran out of the room, calling out Ellie's name. She turned and waited, her face covered with tears. When he reached her, Joe placed his hands on her arms, wondering if she would let him hold her. When she didn't object, he moved to hug her, although the baby was an obstacle to much of an embrace.

Finally, Ellie pulled away from him. "I'll be fine now. Thanks, Joe." He nodded and watched her walk away.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

May 22nd. The beginning of Senior Weekend. Monday was the Memorial Day holiday, which was fortunate because all the seniors would need to rest up from the nearly ceaseless level of activity in which they would partake from Friday through Sunday.

That evening, Ellie sat in her room looking out the window and listening to the street noises of shouting, laughter and music, and the occasional siren or dog bark. She had thought she would feel sad or resentful about missing the prom, after prom and senior class trip, but was surprised that she didn't. It was most certainly due to her visits to Janelle, which had straightened out her priorities. Who used to say, "Get your priorities straight!" to her all the time? Could it have been Mr. Hunter? Ellie smiled a little when she realized that it probably was.

They were certainly straight now. Missing a dance was meaningless. Ellie knew that in the month she hadn't gone to visit her, Janelle could have died. The possibility made her weep. She would never allow herself to be that selfish or thoughtless again.

Ellie ran her fingers over the cornrows Mama had braided into her hair a few days ago. She kept replaying Janelle's words in her head: _Don't give up. Be strong. _Ellie considered herself weak, but hadn't Janelle also doubted her own strength at one point? _Your baby needs you._ That's what really hit her. She had to change somehow, for both Janelles: the older one who believed in her, and the unborn one who needed her.

She hadn't prayed in a long time, but tonight she closed her eyes to pray, thanking God for sparing Janelle's life, and begging Him to make her strong so she could be a good mother for her baby.

* * *

May 22nd. The beginning of Senior Weekend, and Joe was working at Kmart. He actually hadn't been scheduled to work that evening. He wondered for a moment what would have happened had he and Ellie not started dating. Would he have gone to Senior Weekend?

Finally, he decided that the answer was yes. It would have been a fun way to end senior year. Ironically, had he not been involved with Ellie, Angie and Dwayne might not have gotten together, and Joe probably would have invited Angie to be his date.

Yvonne had asked him to attend the prom with her. He had no interest in Yvonne whatsoever, so he had lied and said he had to work, and then he made the lie reality by requesting a shift on Friday night.

At least working was a way to get his mind off his troubles. His mother was out of the hospital and in a rehab center, but her progress and healing would be slow. Haley was submitting applications for disabled housing, and finding that most of them allowed only a personal care attendant to live with the applicant, unless the applicant was married or had minor children. "It makes sense that the personal care attendant should be me," Haley said. Since their mother's name was on their apartment's lease and Section 8 housing voucher, once she moved, her sons would need to find a new place to live.

But, Joe realized, he might not have to worry about that at all. New student orientation at Kenyon was the last week of August, and depending on how his mother's rehab went, he might be gone before she was ready to come home. He felt horrible thinking this way, but part of him was so ready to go, to leave Meryton behind, the place where he had always carried far more burdens than any teenage boy should have. He stopped folding shirts for a display table for a moment and imagined the bucolic campus he had visited the previous summer. In a beautiful place like that, there were no dropout girlfriends, or unplanned pregnancies, or mothers whose touch-and-go health needs gripped his heart with fear each day.

His name was called over the intercom, asking him to come to the back office. Once there, a co-worker told him he had an emergency phone call. Joe instantly broke out into a sweat, fearing one of his siblings was calling with bad news about Ma.

Neither Haley nor Pookie was on the phone. Instead, it was Ms. Jameson. "Your baby's coming, Joe," she said. "Ellie's in labor."

* * *

When Joe arrived at Meryton General, he flinched at the sight of the building he had visited all too often in the last few weeks. Steeling himself, he entered and asked for Labor and Delivery.

He found Ellie walking the hallways with her mother. "They told me I'm not dilated enough yet," she said with a grin. Then she suddenly doubled over, while her mother placed an arm around her back and with the other, held on firmly to Ellie's hand.

When the contraction eased, Ms. Jameson returned to Ellie's delivery room to sit down, and Joe took over walking with the soon-to-be mom. They didn't say much to one another, except to discuss how Ellie was feeling and what he could do to help.

At some point, Ellie had to return to her room, where she lay down on a tilted bed and had an epidural needle inserted in her spine and a fetal monitor strapped to her abdomen. Joe sat beside her, letting her grip his hand tightly during her contractions and rubbing her sore back in between. He was slightly disturbed by all the people walking in and out of the room and observing Ellie's most womanly parts. Ellie noticed his embarrassment and laughed. "At this point, Joe, I don't care. The more people who can help me get this baby out, the better."

Eventually, it came time to push, and Joe watched in awe as a tiny head covered with soft black hair struggled to thrust its way through an even smaller opening. At 11:32 a.m. on Saturday, May 23, 1987, Ellie, face reddened and dripping with sweat, emitted a loud grunt and Janelle Arlene Bennet came into the world.

When they heard their baby's first cry, Joe and Ellie started laughing at the same time. The ob/gyn let him cut the cord, and then the nurses took Janelle over to a small station where they cleaned, measured and monitored her. Joe wiped Ellie's face with a towel while the doctor and a nurse continued doing something or other with her down there.

"You have a very healthy granddaughter," one of the nurses said to Ms. Jameson. "Want to come hold her?"

"Oh, yes!" Ellie's mom cried. She took the baby, now wrapped in a towel, and held her against her chest while making cooing noises. After a few minutes, she turned to him. "Come here, Joe, hold your daughter."

He approached shyly, a little nervous about holding one so small. "Don't be scared, you're not going to break her. Cross your arms in front of you, and hold them out a bit," Ellie's mother said.

He followed her instructions, and she placed little Janelle in his arms, her head resting in the crook of his elbow. The baby's eyes weren't open, but she was definitely awake, as the funny sounds she made and her occasional yawns indicated. Joe held his breath in wonder. She was so beautiful!

"Your wife's cleaned and stitched up now," a nurse said. "You can bring the baby to her."

In his joy, Joe realized he didn't mind Ellie begin given the label, "your wife," at all. He carried the baby to Ellie, who held out her arms to take her.

"Let's see if she'll nurse," the nurse said.

Ellie pulled the hospital gown off her shoulder and placed Janelle next to her dark brown areola. After she massaged the child's mouth with her nipple, her daughter opened up and clamped down so quickly that Ellie cried, "Ouch!" in obvious pain.

"She needs to have a big chunk of your breast in her mouth, not just the nipple," Ms. Jameson laughed. "Otherwise, she'll tear you up."

Ellie's eyelids fluttered while her child heartily sucked. "Get her off, get her off, GETHEROFF!"

"Her jaws are strong, aren't they?" the nurse grinned. "Stick your pinky in the corner of her mouth and slide it down, and she'll pop off." Ellie did so, and the nurse showed her how to help Janelle open her mouth wider to take in the entire areola.

When mom and baby were finally comfortable, Ellie looked up at him. "Thank you for being here."

"This is my baby, too, Ellie. I wouldn't have missed it."

Ellie's eyes drifted down to the child again and the tip of her tongue touched her upper lip as she lightly stroked Janelle's cheek to coax her to continue suckling. Joe felt his heart ache. Ellie looked as adorable as the baby did.

He reached out and gently touched her braided hair. This young woman like no other drew out the tenderness of his heart. "You did such a good job, Ellie. Really, really good."

She looked back at him and smiled. "_We _did good, Joe. We made our beautiful little girl together."

"Now, don't start taking God's credit away from Him. He's the one who created that baby," Ms. Jameson said.

Ellie laughed, a delightful songbird sound. "That's right, Mama. She's God's precious gift to us."

Joe suddenly leaned forward and placed his lips upon hers, for the first time in weeks. He pulled back and gazed into her eyes, which brimmed with tears. "I love you, Joe," she said.

His heart cracked and his own eyes glistened. "I love you, too. I'm sorry," he whispered.

"I know. So am I."

* * *

Joe was snoring lightly in a chair. Ellie really wished she could snooze, too, but relatives kept showing up that afternoon to see her and the baby. The first ones to arrive were her mother's sister Maggie, along with Mitch, who had spent the night with her, and Maggie's eight-year-old daughter Karen.

"Why's she so light?" Mitch asked. He tilted his head toward Joe. "Are you sure he's the father?"

Mama grabbed him by the back of the neck and squeezed. "Ow!" he yelped, rubbing the spot. "What was that for?"

"Because you just asked a very rude question! You know better than to say things like that, Mitch!"

Ellie just laughed. Nothing could take away her happiness today, not even her annoying younger brother.

"Most babies start out lighter than they end up," Aunt Maggie explained. "See how the tops of Janelle's ears are darker? That's probably what color she'll end up being."

"Why are her hands so wrinkled?" Karen asked.

Maggie answered that, too. "You know how your skin looks like a prune if you stay in the bathtub too long? Well, this baby's been swimming in water for the last nine months."

Many others came, and eventually Joe woke up and left to visit his mother. It was well into the evening before Ellie finally passed out from exhaustion. She wasn't even aware when Joe arrived the next day. Between waking every few hours to nurse and trying to get some sleep in between, she had no sense of the time of day and had to ask.

"It's almost seven at night," he told her. "I've been watching you sleep for the last hour."

Ellie looked around and noticed that the room was empty except for him. "I didn't drool or snore, did I?"

Joe laughed. "No."

"Oh, good. Hey, did you see Janelle in the nursery?"

"Yeah. She's so cute! I want to grab everybody that walks by and say, 'That's my baby! That's my daughter!'"

She smiled and took his hand. "I'm glad you're here."

"When do you get out of here? Ma wants us to know when we can come by and show her the baby."

"Tomorrow, I think. I have to poop first before they let me go home." She laughed at the face he made. "Hey, you asked!"

Joe chuckled and then grew more serious. "It's good that nobody else is here. We need to talk."

Ellie nodded, pulling her bottom lip into her mouth. "I didn't do this on purpose, Joe. You believe me, right?"

He nodded. "I know, Ellie."

"And you were right. It _was_ stupid of me to drop out. And now it's too late to do anything about it."

"You can always get a GED."

Ellie nodded. "Yeah… but it would have been so much easier if I had just kept going to school in the first place."

"I need to tell you something, too." His tone and the pressure he exerted on her hand made her anxious. "I decided to go to Kenyon."

The news didn't surprise her, but she didn't know what to say nevertheless.

"I'm sorry, Ellie. I wanted to stay here—"

"No, Joe! Go to Kenyon. You said they gave you the most money, right?"

He nodded.

"Then that's where you should go."

"The good thing," he said slowly, "is that I can use some of the money I've been saving for college to come home on the weekends. Maybe not every weekend, but I'll try to come home at least two times a month. That way I can see both you and Janelle and my mother."

Ellie nodded, trying not to cry. _Be strong,_ she told herself. But she needed something to help her stick to that conviction. "Joe… can I have a kiss?"

He nodded. Ellie swung her legs over the side of the bed, and he stepped in between them, leaning his head toward hers. Their kiss quickly became passionate, as their mouths absorbed each other's sorrow and joy and longing. When they stopped, Joe pulled Ellie's head against his chest, cradling her in his arms. "I love you so much," he whispered as she listened to his heart beat. It was exactly what she needed to hear.


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19**

**Author's note: This chapter includes the last of the heavy angst in this story. In the two chapters that follow, you'll be introduced to two very significant characters who will steer Joe and Ellie in the direction of their happy ending.**

* * *

"_Come on, Ellie, you can do this. You look so pretty today, and you'll have a chance to make all new friends. It won't be like the old school."_

_Ellie's arms were wrapped around her mother's waist in a death grip, and her face was buried into Mama's side as she silently cried._

_Her mother sighed and looked at the office lady in front of her. "I'm sorry," she told her. "Her father and I have just been through a really ugly divorce, and she's having a tough time."_

_The woman clucked sympathetically. "Don't worry, I've seen it before."_

_Mama eventually pried Ellie's hands loose, and, still holding them, knelt in front of her. "Ellie, it will be okay, I promise you. This is the school I went to when I was a little girl."_

_It was the first day of second grade. Well, technically it was the second day, but the day before, Ellie had cried and screamed so much, they never made it out of the apartment they had moved into a month earlier. Knowing how much Ellie had been through the previous year, Mama called into work, telling them Ellie was sick. She then took Ellie into her arms and rocked her until she calmed down._

"_Why don't we go shopping for a pretty new dress and some ribbons?" Mama asked. _

_Ellie looked up, surprised. Mama had said there wasn't any money for new school clothes this year. Instead, she had been given hand-me-downs from her cousins. _

"_If you have a new dress and I fix your hair really pretty, then everybody at the new school will want to be your friend."_

_Mama took her out that day and bought her a flowery dress that twirled when she spun around. She had already straightened Ellie's hair, but now she parted it into four ponytails. She curled the ends into corkscrews and topped each one with a pretty ribbon. _

_Years later, Ellie would realize what a sacrifice her mother had made for her that day. Not only was the dress purchase outside her mother's budget, but she had lost a day's earnings by staying home with her._

_Although the new dress and hairstyle helped Ellie make it out the door and into the car with Mama on the second day, arriving at the school brought her fears back. The building was plain and old, unlike the shiny new school she had attended for kindergarten and first grade. Black asphalt covered the schoolyard instead of a grassy lawn. But her former pretty school was filled with ugliness. Maybe this ugly school would be pretty on the inside. She clutched Mama's hand as they entered the building._

_The office lady now stood in front of her. "Would you like a sticker?" she asked._

_Ellie nodded, and the lady handed her a small decal of Cookie Monster. "Thank you," she said softly. _

"_See, Ellie? This lady's nice. She'll take you to your class now."_

_Ellie hugged Mama tightly and her mother kissed her forehead several times. "Everything will be okay, Ellie, I promise," she repeated._

_She finally let go and waved goodbye. The lady walked Ellie to a classroom and knocked on the door, handing the woman who answered a sheet of paper. _

"_Hi, Ellie, I'm Mrs. Randall," the teacher said. "Come on in."_

_She placed her arm on Ellie's shoulder as they entered the room. She clapped her hands to silence the murmuring. "Everyone, we have another student who will be part of our class this year. This is Ellie Jameson."_

_Ellie looked around at the other kids nervously. Would they like her, or would they taunt her like the kids at her old school?_

_Mrs. Randall called on a boy in the front row. "Joe, would you show Ellie where to put away her things?"_

_A little shrimp of a kid jumped up, and Ellie laid eyes on Joseph Bennet for the first time. She followed him into the cloak room where he pointed to an empty hook on the wall for her jacket. "You put your lunchbox up there."_

_After she placed her Barbie lunchbox on the shelf above her jacket, he commented, "I like your hair."_

_His compliment gave her the courage to ask him what she had been wondering. "Is this a nice school?"_

_He shrugged and grinned, his dimples already obvious in his seven-year-old face. "I guess so."_

_Although his words and gesture didn't convince, his smile did. Mama was right; everything would be okay._

* * *

At eighteen and a half, Ellie was starting another new school, only this time she wasn't afraid, but embarrassed.

It wasn't a new school, exactly. Instead, it was a GED program for teenage mothers offered by the East Longbourn Community Center. At least the two instructors seemed nice. Jessie was the Center's Education Specialist. In addition to the GED program offered weekday mornings, she also taught English as a Second Language classes in the afternoons and an adult basic education course two evenings a week. A college student, Erin, worked as her assistant for the summer.

Ellie was more apprehensive about the other students. The other eight young women all knew each other already, and unlike Ellie, none of them seemed ashamed of being an unwed mother on welfare.

Although her AFDC benefits hadn't yet been approved, Ellie was honest enough to admit that's what she now was. One of the most humiliating days of her life had been the week in mid-June when she walked into the welfare office to apply.

Due to her despair about losing her father and boyfriend and her subsequent rash decision to drop out of school, she had never had the conversation with Joe her father had advised her to have, and within the first week of Janelle's birth, it came back to haunt her.

On Monday after Janelle was born, Ellie was informed that they wouldn't be released from the hospital unless Janelle had her first pediatric visit scheduled and they possessed a working car seat. Mama had made a quick phone call to Ellie's own pediatrician who made an appointment for Thursday, and then she'd rushed out to Kmart to purchase the car seat. When she informed a clerk that she was the grandmother of Joe's daughter, the woman had bent over backwards to help Mama and even applied her own employee discount to the purchase. "They sure do love Joe over at that store," Mama said when she returned.

A kindly orderly helped them install the seat in Mama's car. "We didn't have to have these when my kids were babies," her mother remarked to the man. "I don't remember now how we managed without them."

Determined that she and Joe would provide for Janelle themselves, Ellie had thought that would be the last outlay of money Mama would have, especially since Aunt Maggie was planning a baby shower and told her the family would supply a lot of what her daughter needed. When they arrived at the pediatric clinic on Thursday, however, Ellie watched uneasily as her mother plunked down seventy-five dollars to pay for the visit.

Janelle was doing great for the most part, according to the pediatrician. She had lost a few ounces since birth, but that was normal, and she should start gaining again soon. "The only thing I'm concerned about is the orange-ish tint to her skin," he said. "It could indicate jaundice."

"What's that?" Ellie asked in alarm. "Is something wrong with my baby?"

"It's a common condition in newborns, caused by the fact that their livers aren't fully working yet. You should take her over to Children's Hospital so they can test her and know for sure."

"What happens if she has it?"

"They'll admit her for a day or two, and place her under ultraviolet lights. The lights will help break down a substance in her body called bilirubin that her liver isn't yet able to handle. As I said, it happens to a lot of babies. In most cases, as long as you get it treated right away, it's nothing to worry about."

Before they left, the doctor asked them to come back in a week so he could make sure the jaundice was resolved, and then return once a month for well-baby visits.

Ellie sat in anxiety on the car ride to Children's Hospital. Mama had taken the week off to help her adjust to motherhood. She wasn't on salary; instead, she got paid based on how many heads she styled plus tips, so she was losing an entire week of earnings. The doctor wanted them back the following Thursday and then every month thereafter, at seventy-five dollars a pop. And who knew how much the hospital would cost?

"How are we going to pay for the hospital?" she finally asked.

"We'll work it out somehow," Mama answered. "I'll call your father and ask him for help if I have to."

Ellie bit her tongue to keep from shouting, "No!" How angry would her father be when he found out that she and Joe had never talked about how they would provide for the baby's medical needs?

Without insurance for Janelle, the hospital wouldn't treat her without a deposit. Ellie watched her mother write them a check for one hundred dollars. "We'll bill you for the rest," said the medical clerk.

After the hospital admitted Janelle, Ellie was relieved to be allowed to remain with her, although she had a difficult time watching them stick IV needles into her daughter's tiny veins. They shared a room with another jaundiced newborn baby and his mother. She and the other mom laughed at how quickly their children fell asleep—and stayed asleep—under the warm lights of their incubators.

Joe came by that evening, telling her that Mama had stopped at Longbourn High to let him know. Ellie expressed to him her concerns about the medical costs. "Tell your mother she doesn't need to call your father, OK? I'll pay for the hospital stay."

"Can you afford it?"

"Yeah, I can. I have about eighteen hundred dollars in my savings account."

His words reassured her until she received the bill on June 12th. Minus Mama's deposit, the bill still totaled $850. She gulped. She was certain Joe hadn't realized that his offer would cost almost half his college fund.

June 12th was a tough day anyway, although not because of her daughter. Caring for Janelle was a delight as always because she was such a good baby, as her mother frequently reminded her to be thankful for. Janelle nursed well and wasn't fussy, and although she still awoke to feed several times a night, Ellie was surprised to feel a relaxed rather than irritable tiredness.

No, the day was hard because Longbourn High's seniors were graduating. Ellie spent the day berating herself for her appallingly bad decision two months earlier. Because Janelle was still so young, she wouldn't have been able to walk in the ceremony, but at least she could have received her diploma in the mail. And she felt sad for poor Joe, whose own joy at graduation was dampened because neither his mother nor girlfriend was there to rejoice with him.

After spending the day in self-pity, Ellie remembered Janelle's encouragement. _Be strong. Don't give up. _With those words in mind, she swallowed her pride. She wasn't going to ask Joe for anything more. With Mondays as her mother's usual day off, Mama babysat while Ellie went out to visit the welfare office on Hertfordshire Boulevard.

She took a number and had to wait for a caseworker to see her. During the delay, she forced herself not to cry. _Your baby needs you, your baby needs you._ No one in her family had _ever _received government aid. _"Your mama's on welfare!" _was an insult at her school, one bandied about regardless of the truth of the statement, although she was sure there were many of her classmates to whom the words applied. But Ellie needed welfare to receive Medicaid, without which she wouldn't be able to pay for Janelle's medical bills.

The caseworker finally called her number. The woman helped her complete the AFDC and Medicaid applications, which she said would take a couple months to process before approval. In the meantime, applications for WIC were usually approved right away, which would help Ellie with purchasing formula and food. She gave her the address to the local WIC office.

"One more thing," the caseworker said before she dismissed Ellie. "The federal government is considering some changes to AFDC rules, which will require recipients to either be involved in job training or educational programs. The state of Ohio is trying to get a jumpstart on this by making sure that all clients know about the programs that are out there."

She handed her a stapled packet, which Ellie flipped through. Each sheet contained information about one type of training program or another. She bit her lip as she noted that every course required the following: _Must have high school diploma or GED._

"What if I didn't graduate?" she asked.

The woman reached into a file on her desk and handed her another sheet of paper. "Contact the East Longbourn Community Center. They offer several educational programs free-of-charge."

That was how Ellie found herself in the GED course. Instructional classes were offered on Monday through Thursday from nine to twelve, and the young women could come in on Friday morning if they felt ready to test. On-site childcare was available for children two months and older. Although Janelle wouldn't be old enough until August, the instructor Jessie said Ellie could start in July provided she made her own arrangements for babysitting. Ellie's great-aunt was happy to watch Janelle as long as it was only for a few hours a day.

At the end of her first week, Jessie told Ellie she was confident she was ready to take the two Language Arts tests. Ellie completed the Reading and Writing exams on the following Friday, passing both with flying colors.

Studying for the other three tests in Social Studies, Math and Science proved much more difficult. About three weeks into the course, the assistant Erin was working one-on-one with Ellie, helping her with algebraic equations. Ellie had barely eked out a C minus in ninth grade algebra and never felt like she understood the subject. After several patient attempts by Erin to explain the factoring of polynomials, Ellie threw down her pencil in frustration.

"Come on, Ellie, you have to keep trying," Erin urged.

"Why? I'm too stupid to learn this stuff! I was stupid when I had it in school, and I'm stupid now!"

"No, you're not, Ellie! You just need to try harder! Now let's work on that problem again."

"What the _hell_ do you know about it?" Ellie screamed. Erin jumped back in shock.

"Erin, why don't you go help Marisol," Jessie said, apparently unruffled. "Ellie, I want you to come with me."

Ellie followed Jessie to her office and sat in a chair, trying hard to calm herself down.

"Ellie, what you just did was _terrible," _Jessie began. "You do realize that?"

"I know." Ellie felt awful; she really liked Erin.

"If you have another outburst like that, I'm going to ask you not to come back."

Ellie nodded. "I'm sorry."

"I want you to apologize to Erin later, but first I want to discuss something with you. You know, some of the girls in this program have been here for months, and haven't yet taken a single test. You come here and in your second week you ace both Language Arts exams. I have to wonder why a young woman who's so obviously intelligent is so convinced she's stupid."

"Because I am," Ellie said softly.

"Did someone tell you that at some point, Ellie?"

_Ellie is so stupid! Ellie is a retard! _She didn't answer.

Jessie, who had been sitting behind her desk, moved around and took the seat next to Ellie's. "I know that sometimes people say things to us that are very hurtful, especially when we're young. Those messages become negative tapes that play over and over in our heads, and they keep us from accomplishing the things we're capable of."

Ellie closed her eyes. _You're a stupid retard! _she heard again.

"Did something like that happen to you, Ellie?"

"Yes," she whispered. "In first grade."

"What happened?"

"They said I was stupid and retarded."

"Who said that? Other children? Your parents?"

"Other kids."

"Kids can be really mean sometimes."

"My teacher, too."

"Your teacher?" Jessie asked gently. "Why did she say that?"

"Because it was true."

"Knowing you now, I don't think that was the case, Ellie. What happened in first grade?"

_It had started before first grade, in kindergarten. Where had they lived at the time? She didn't remember, but it wasn't Longbourn City. Mama and Daddy were together, and they had a pretty house with a big backyard and their own swing set and slide. _

_Ellie remembered being happy. She liked to play with her brother Mitch, a tiny tot at the time, and Mama and Daddy did fun stuff with them, like taking them to the zoo. And she loved kindergarten. Her teacher was so nice, she made lots of friends, and she got all E's—for excellent—on her report card._

_She sensed something was wrong by her parents' hushed tones. She heard them talking about Daddy's job. Then they stopped doing fun things together, and every time Ellie asked them to buy her something, Mama said, "Sorry, baby, we don't have the money."_

_By the time she started first grade, things were much worse. Daddy stayed home during the day with Mitch, and Mama would come home and yell at him for not cleaning the house or cooking dinner. "And what'd you do about finding a job today?" she'd scream. "If you don't get off your butt, we're going to lose this house, Alvin, and end up on the street!" In Ellie's childish nightmares, their house would disappear as if by magic and she and her family would huddle together in the road while cars zoomed by._

_Their shouting would last half the night and Ellie would hide under the covers and pull the pillow over her head to try to block it out, to no avail. She hadn't wet her pants or sucked her thumb since she was four, but now she these habits returned with a vengeance. She awoke with soaked bed sheets every morning, and the skin on her thumb had rubbed raw._

_In school she spent her time daydreaming, and her teacher constantly admonished her to pay attention. "Ellie the stupid retard," one boy dubbed her because of her tendency to stare into space and say, "huh?" whenever Miss Jacobs called on her, and soon the rest of the children picked it up. _

_Even worse, the friends she made in kindergarten began to avoid her. When they ran away from her one day after she tried to join them on the playground, she fled into a corner of the schoolyard where she wet her pants._

_Sniffing the urine on her as they lined up to go back into school, another boy shouted, "Hey, Ellie stinks! Smelly Ellie!" Everyone laughed, and from that day onward she hated her name._

_Two nights later, Ellie heard a door slam after one of her parents' many fights. When she didn't see Daddy in the morning, she asked her mother where he was. Mama took her into her arms. "Oh, baby, I'm so sorry. Daddy's not coming back."_

_That morning, Miss Jacobs called her up to the blackboard to do a subtraction problem. Despite the teacher's attempts to coach her through the arithmetic, Ellie stared at the numbers, utterly perplexed. "Smelly Ellie's a retard!" the same loudmouthed boy whispered. The children's laughter was more than Ellie could take, and she lost her bladder again. Her exasperated teacher shouted, "Ellie! Don't just stand there! Ask me when you need to use the restroom! Sometimes I swear the kids are right and you are retarded!"_

_Ellie curled up in a ball on the floor in her own pee, sobbing. Horrified at her words, Miss Jacobs had shushed the class and made Ellie stand so she could walk her to the nurse, apologizing the whole way. But it was too late. Ellie now knew what her teacher really thought of her, and the words remained imprinted on her brain._

"Ellie?" Jessie repeated. "What happened in first grade?"

"That," Ellie said as tears began to run down her face, "was when my father left."

* * *

**Notes**

* GED stands for General Education Development, a set of five subject tests that, if successfully passed, provide Americans who haven't graduated from high school with the equivalent of a high school diploma.

* AFDC stands for Aid to Families with Dependent Children, the form of U.S. government welfare payments for poor women and their children that existed from the 1930s until 1997. The Family Support Act of 1988 was a precursor to the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996, which abolished AFDC (a time-limited and severely restricted form of welfare replaced it). The 1988 act tied enrollment in education or job training programs to the receipt of welfare payments, and in 1987 when this story takes place, many states had begun to implement such policy changes on their own.

* Since 1965, Medicaid has served as a health insurance program for low-income and disabled Americans.

* WIC stands for Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children. Implemented in 1972, WIC provides nutrition information for low-income pregnant and breastfeeding women and their children from birth to age five, as well as vouchers to purchase food and baby formula.


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20**

"Where the heck are we going?" Joe asked his brother. On a Saturday afternoon in early August Pookie had told him he needed his help with something, asking him to take a short trip with him. The "short trip" turned out to be quite long, as they caught a bus that took them to a big transportation depot on the outskirts of Meryton where they transferred to a different bus. The second vehicle sailed through a residential suburb, drove through an industrial office park, and now was passing what looked like open fields.

"This place is really out there," Pookie replied. "I appreciate you coming."

Joe frowned, noticing that his brother hadn't really answered the question. Eventually they approached a tan brick structure with a wide manicured lawn in front, and Pookie pulled the cable to signal for the driver to stop. The boys stood and Pookie held out his hand to let Joe exit the bus ahead of him. "Straight ahead into the building," he said.

Joe started walking forward when he heard the bus doors shut behind him. He turned in time to see the vehicle pulling away, his brother still on board and waving to him. "What the—!" he shouted. Had his brother just abandoned him in the middle of nowhere?

Okay, he could cross the street and wait who knows how long for the bus going back the other way, or he could enter the building and do—what? He was going to _kill_ Pookie the next time he saw him.

With a deep sigh, Joe walked toward the building's front entrance, having no clue what the hell he was supposed to do once he got inside. The only sign anywhere around was above the door, which read _The Annabelle Hutchins House. _

The door was locked, so Joe rang the buzzer. A white guy with gray-blond hair, a red face and a thick moustache answered. He stared at Joe for a second and then said, "Oh yeah, he's expecting you. Come on in." Joe followed the man fearfully into a well-lit entryway. The man yelled up the polished wooden staircase. "Hey, Larry! Your kid's here!"

Joe froze for a second, and then turned to dart back out. The man grabbed his arm in a vice-like grip. "Come on, kid, you can't leave. He's been waiting for you all day."

A short while later, a man wearing jeans and a white t-shirt bounded down the stairs. "Joe," the man said. His father.

Pop thanked the man and then tilted his head toward Joe. "Follow me." It was a command, not a request, which pissed Joe off, yet he found himself following nonetheless.

They entered a huge kitchen that held two sets of double ovens, two industrial size refrigerators, and a stove with eight burners of various sizes. A bald, burly black man with tattoos on his arms sat at a table in the middle of the room, eating fried chicken. It smelled good, and Joe suddenly had the bizarre desire to ask him for some.

The evil expression on the man's face halted any request Joe might have had, until the guy unexpectedly smiled. "This another one of your kids, Larry? Gotta be."

"Yep," Pop answered. "This is my son Joe."

The man wiped his hands on a napkin and held one out. "I'm Cord." His huge hand dwarfed Joe's, and his grip was as tight as that of the man who had answered the door. He was very relieved when Cord let go, and restrained himself from shaking it out to restore blood flow.

His father stuck his head in one of the refrigerators. "You still like cream soda?"

"Yeah," Joe answered quietly. Pop remembered that?

Holding a ginger ale in one hand, Larry handed Joe a can of cream soda with the other. He turned and started walking toward a door in the back of the room, expecting, it seemed, for Joe to follow once again.

The door exited to a wide open field behind the building, about half of which appeared to be covered with cultivated rows of vegetables. Six men were working the garden, pulling weeds and filling large bags with verdant leaves.

A picnic table stood not far from the door. His father sat down and held out a hand to indicate for Joe to sit also. Larry popped open his ginger ale and took a sip. "You ever had freshly picked collard greens?"

Joe shook his head. His father called out, "Hey, Petey! Bring me some of that!"

One of the bag-stuffing men ran over, a few leaves in hand. "Try it," Pop said.

Joe tasted a leaf. It was surprisingly sweet and tender, not at all like the tough leafy vegetable they simmered for hours with a ham hock on holidays. "It's good," he said.

Pop nodded. "So many people never get to eat anything freshly picked. It's amazing how much better things taste."

Joe looked around, trying hard to shake the _Twilight Zone_ feeling he was experiencing. "What is this place, Pop?"

"It's a residence for men who've been released from prison."

Pop was an ex-con? Figures. "So you live here, huh?"

His father grinned. "I _work _here. And I live here. I'm the program director."

"Why is it called the Annabelle Hutchins House?"

"It used to be a home for mentally ill people from wealthy families. Annabelle Hutchins was the benefactress who founded the place."

"And how long…?"

"How long has it been what it is now? About six years. I heard about the land and the building being up for auction, so I asked some folks I know to buy it."

So his father had started this program. Joe's curiosity was getting the best of him. "Do y'all grow all these vegetables to eat?"

"We grow our own in the summer and fall pretty much, but in the winter and spring we have to shop at the grocery store. We also sell a lot of what we grow to restaurants and upscale markets."

"Upscale as in rich?" When his father nodded, Joe asked why.

"The folks who bought the property only agreed to do so if we could make it self-sustaining within two years. So we have to make a profit on what we sell. Much as I would love to supply the grocery stores in places such as Longbourn City, we can't really afford to."

"So these guys just… work in a garden all day?"

Larry smiled broadly. "Among other things. We also make jams and jellies, soaps, candles, pottery, paintings. We work with a number of shops that carry our goods. Like I said, we have to support ourselves."

"How many people live here?"

"We usually have between twenty and thirty men here at a time."

"And how long do they stay?"

His father took another sip, and noticed that Joe hadn't opened his cream soda. "There's nothing wrong with your soda pop, Joe. Go ahead and drink it," he grinned. "How long they stay depends. The goal is to get them integrated back into the community within eighteen months. Any longer than that, and they start to become too dependent on the program we've created here."

Pop paused to wipe his brow with the cold metal of his soda can. "Meeting that deadline can be tough, though, because a lot of them lack job skills and literacy, and we have to build those up first. Not to mention the fact that finding a job is very hard once you have a record. But we have employers that know our program well enough now that they'll hire guys coming out of it. Most of all, we have to get them in a mental place where they can cope with anger, frustration, and temptation, and all the things that can trip them up out in the real world."

Joe halted his questioning to lift the tab on his cream soda. "How did Pookie find you all the way out here?"

Pop laughed. "Good question. Your brother knows people who know people who know people. I was very surprised when he showed up at the door a few months ago."

"Why did he come?"

Larry was quiet for a minute, for the first since they'd started talking. In the silence, Joe suddenly reflected on how much Pop reminded him of Pookie. Not in appearance—in fact, looking at his father was eerily like gazing into a mirror—but in personality. His father had that same easy smile and appealing voice.

"The stuff we do here," Pop answered, stretching his hand toward the men who were working, "isn't just to make money. Hard, physical labor, connecting with nature, being creative: all those things are healing for the soul. Many of these guys, all they've known is violence their whole lives. They need a lot of healing."

His father, Joe suddenly remembered, was an artist like his sister. He wasn't sure how all this related to his brother, but his father was interesting enough to listen to that he didn't mind hearing him out.

"Randolph found himself in that same sort of place a couple months ago, angry and feeling violent. He need to do something positive that would be healing for him. And that was finding me."

Joe almost spit out his drink. He swallowed, and tried to temper his voice so he wouldn't start yelling. "So you know about Ma!"

"Yeah, I know," his father answered. "Your brother told me."

"But you still don't care, 'cause if you did, you'd have gone to see her by now!"

"I have seen your mother, Joe."

Joe stared at him, a little stunned. "When?"

"I've visited her three times since she's been in rehab."

Joe was baffled. "Why would you visit her?"

"I love her. I always have."

"You have a funny way of showing love," Joe said bitterly.

His father thrummed his fingers against the table. "So I hear I have a lot to congratulate you on," he said finally. "Graduating, getting accepted to college, becoming a father."

"You changing the subject?"

"How do you like fatherhood?"

"Better than you did."

Pop crossed his arms and looked intently at him. "Randolph wanted me to talk to you, because he said you're feeling a lot of pressure, and he thought I might be able to help."

Joe shook his head. "How could you possibly help? What do you know about trying to figure out how to take responsibility for your family?"

"You might be surprised."

Joe felt his anger rising and wanted to lunge across the table at the man facing him. He gripped the edge instead, held back by the knowledge that several menacing-looking men were periodically watching them.

Larry noticed Joe's gaze. "Go ahead and yell at me, Joe. You know how many of these guys wish they could trade places with you and yell at their fathers?"

Still wary, Joe lowered his voice instead. "You've been gone for thirteen years, Pop. I know I was only a little kid, but you think I didn't know what was going on? She _begged _you not to leave. I remember the night you packed up and left, and I heard her beggingyou not to go! But you didn't care. You went anyway!"

A dark cloud passed over his father's face. "I had to, Joe."

Caution forgotten, Joe started screaming. "That's bull! It was a choice! You decided it was too much trouble to take care of a sick wife and three kids, so you decided to screw all of it!"

His father didn't answer for a long time, and Joe was afraid that his rage would turn to tears if he didn't have a target to keep swinging at. He felt some relief when his father finally spoke again. "Leaving was the only way your mother could divorce me."

Dammit, the tears were coming. "She didn't want the divorce, Pop, you did!"

"I didn't want it, either!"

Joe rolled his eyes, fury drying them up. "You're so full of it!"

"I didn't! I loved your mother, Joe, I always have! HiIt was the only way! Back then, the only way she could divorce me was if I beat her or cheated on her or abandoned her. And to be considered abandonment, I had to be _gone_, out of the house for one year, before she could file."

"So you wanted to force her to give you a divorce."

His father suddenly looked tired. "Yeah, I did, Joe, but not for the reasons you might think."

When Joe didn't answer, Larry started speaking softly. "Joe, this is something I never wanted you kids to know, because I was so ashamed that I couldn't take care of my family. But maybe it will help you with some of the decisions you need to make."

The sadness in his father's eyes and voice arrested any words of protest Joe thought to say.

"When you kids were young, I was working two jobs, but neither one paid a lot of money. I had a lot of talents, but being a young black man without a degree or connections made it hard to get a better job. And hell, even if I could, at the time I used to think I didn't want to sell out to 'the man.'

"Your mother stayed home with the three of you. She was too sick to work most of the time, and we couldn't afford to send you to day care. Neither of my jobs offered health insurance, and every time we took her to the doctor, or one of you kids to the doctor, we had to pay for it ourselves."

Joe caught his breath. He could relate.

"Our bills, especially our medical bills, kept piling up. It got to the point where we couldn't take her to the clinic anymore because we owed too much and they wouldn't see her. Your mother was _so_ sick, Joe, and I knew that if something didn't change, we could lose her.

"Someone I worked with told me that if I divorced her, she could apply for welfare or social security and get Medicaid. But back then, you couldn't get a no-fault divorce. I would have to abandon her for a year, like I told you. I sat down one night and told her my plan, and you're right, she begged me not to do it. But all I could think of was her dying, and the three of you being left without your mother. She told me what it was like to grow up without her mother, how lost she felt all the time. I didn't want that to happen to you."

"You left just so she could get welfare?"

"I left to save her life, Joe!"

"But she stayed sick! She got worse after you were gone. And there were so many times when we were hungry when I was little!"

"I know. Joe, you have to believe me, if there was some other way we could have done it, we would have! Once I was gone, I rented a dirt-cheap room. I picked up another job, and worked almost all the time, getting about four hours' sleep a night, because I didn't have anyone waiting for me at home anymore."

"So you were taking care of yourself!"

"No, I was taking care of you! Your mother wasn't working, and like I said, it was a year before she could get any kind of aid. I sent her almost everything I made so she could pay the bills, and all I kept was enough for my room and some food and a bus pass. I know she was hurt and angry, but she accepted it because didn't want you kids to starve or to get evicted. I paid off all the medical bills during that year, so that by the time her Medicaid benefits were approved, they were willing to take her as a patient at the clinic again. But by then, the diabetes had already set in. Still, I think she was relieved when the divorce and the aid came through, because she didn't feel so dependent on me."

"So she hated you, too." Even though Joe had always wished that were the case, he realized that it didn't make him feel good after all.

"I don't know if your mother ever hated me, Joe, but she was pretty mad at me for a long time. After a few years, though, she started to understand. She said she found strength in standing on her own two feet, and she knew that what I did was because I loved all of you."

"But why'd you stay away, if you loved us so much?"

Larry remained quiet for a long time, looking down at his hands. "Joe… my father grew up in a poor family in the Jim Crow South. But he was hardworking and determined, and he started a business that prospered. Here I was, someone who had more opportunities than he did, and I failed. I had to leave my family so they could go on government aid so they could survive. You know what that does to a man?"

His words pierced Joe's heart. Ellie was waiting for approval from welfare and Medicaid so she could support their daughter once Joe was gone. Was he doing the same thing to Ellie that his father had done to Ma? "But couldn't you have at least come to see us more often?"

Pop shook his head. "It was so hard to face you. You always wanted to know when I was coming home, and I didn't have an answer for you."

Joe tried to swallow the painful lump in his throat. Due to all the money he'd shelled out for the doctor that summer, he wasn't going to be able to visit as much as he'd wanted to. Would Janelle ever ask that? _When are you coming home, Daddy? _ Once he was gone for the four years of college, would it be easier to stay away for good, because answering the question hurt too much?

"You know, I finished my bachelor's degree about three years ago."

Joe looked up in surprise. "You did?"

"Yeah, in social work. It took me forever, usually taking one class at a time."

Was he supposed to be proud of this fact?

As if reading his mind, his father added, "I don't expect you to be proud of me. I'm just telling you all this so you can understand what my life has been like, and why I made the decisions I made. I have a _lot_ of regrets, Joe, and I really wish things had turned out differently. But at some point I realized I could continue to wallow in my regrets, or I could move forward. Finishing college, founding this place, trying to help these guys have a chance at life, is helping me do that. And I hope that maybe something I said today can help you."

Joe nodded. He wasn't sure what to think anymore, about his father, Kenyon, Janelle. Right now, he just wanted to go home. "What time does the next bus going back to Meryton come?"

"They run about once an hour, and I think you missed the most recent one. Why don't you stay?"

"Stay?"

"For dinner. Believe it or not, some of these guys are good cooks. Stay, and let me drive you home afterward."

Joe thought about it, and nodded, albeit reluctantly. "Okay."

* * *

**I would really love to hear your impressions. Do you think the story is realistic? What do you think of Larry? What do you think he is trying to communicate to his son?**


	21. Chapter 21

**This is one of my favorite chapters. I think you'll see why.**

* * *

**Chapter 21**

Joe found the downtown steakhouse without much problem, but felt apprehensive upon entering. The place was a lot fancier than he expected, and most of the patrons were professionally dressed. He stood out in his jeans and uncollared shirt, not to mention being the only young black kid in the place, and was afraid someone would ask him to leave before he spotted the man he had come to meet.

Fortunately, a tall black man soon approached him. "Are you Joe?" asked the man, who was in his late twenties or early thirties and wearing a business suit. When Joe nodded, the man smiled and held out his hand. "I'm Billy Darcy."

Joe shook his hand firmly. "I know I'm not dressed right…"

The man waved his hand, unconcerned. "Don't even worry about it. Most of these people are folks that work around here and are on their lunch break."

"You work near here, too?"

"Yes, I'm an attorney at a law firm a few blocks away."

They were soon seated by a waiter who brought them menus and took their order for beverages. Joe looked over the menu with some dismay. The entrees were way out of his price range, so he decided on a side dish that he could afford. When the waiter returned with their soft drinks, Billy ordered a sirloin steak, baked potato and salad. Joe requested an order of fries.

"Will that be all?" the waiter asked.

When Joe said yes, Billy motioned to the waiter to remain. He then leaned toward Joe and spoke softly. "Joe, this is on me."

"Naw, you don't have to do that."

"It's not a problem. Get what you want."

Joe looked at him warily, wondering what he might want in return. Billy seemed to read his mind. "Joe, after today, you'll probably never see me again. But someday, some young man is going to need advice from _you_ about what he wants to do with his life. You can pay me back for this by helping him out."

Joe nodded and looked up at the waiter. "I guess I'll have what he's getting then, but with the fries."

"Very good," the waiter answered, before taking their menus and walking away.

Billy smiled. "OK, let's get the important stuff out of the way. Indians or Reds?"

Joe grinned back. "Are you kidding? Indians."

"So I guess it's Browns rather than Bengals, too?"

Joe started laughing. "Of course. Why is that even a question?"

Billy shook his head, still smiling. "I had to know where you stood, man. Otherwise, I'd have to take back my offer to pay for lunch."

Joe wanted to turn to the purpose of their meeting. "How do you know Mr. Hunter?"

"My mom teaches in the Meryton schools, too, so they got to know each other through different teachers' groups. He and his wife and my parents have been friends for years."

"What did he tell you about me?"

"He said you and he had argued because you were all set to go to Kenyon, and then you changed your mind. I think he's expecting me to change it back, but I'd like to hear what you have to say. Oh, and congratulations, by the way. Kenyon's a really good school."

Joe nodded his thanks. "Did he tell you why I changed my mind?"

"He said you have a baby now, and that your mother's ill."

"Yeah. I can't see being so far from home, and I don't have a car. And even if I did, it still feels like too far."

"I think Mr. Hunter is concerned that you're giving up a really good opportunity, and he wants you to give it more thought."

"No, he's concerned about his _own_ ass!" Joe snapped back, and then stared wide-eyed, startled at his outburst.

"Why do you say that?" Billy replied calmly.

Joe didn't want to answer. He didn't want to criticize Mr. Hunter to the son of his good friends. He felt so ungrateful, after everything Mr. Hunter had done for him, but he couldn't shake his anger.

"Look, Joe, everybody gets upset sometimes with people they care about. That's okay. It doesn't make you a bad person. Tell me what Mr. Hunter did that's bothering you so much."

Was this guy a mind-reader? Joe looked around for a few seconds and then turned back to Billy. "It's not that he did something. It's just… I feel like he doesn't want me to go to Kenyon for me, but for him. Like it'll show that everything he invested in me paid off. He's disappointed in me because my girlfriend got pregnant. No, even before that, when we first started going out, because he thought she'd bring me down. When she had the baby, it was like it proved him right. And now it's like I have to make it up to him, or something. He's not thinking about what's best for _me._"

The waiter arrived with their lunches, and the two men halted their conversation in order to begin eating. After a few minutes, Billy sat back. "Why don't we talk about what is best for you, Joe. If you don't go to Kenyon, what are you thinking about instead?"

Joe put down his fork. "I don't know. I got into the University of Meryton, too, but even though it's cheaper, I didn't get as much financial aid, so it would actually cost more for me to go there. Plus, I already told them no back when I thought I was going to Kenyon. I could've paid for Meryton State but I didn't get into because of a stupid mistake I made. I had almost two thousand saved for college, but I used a lot of it to pay for a hospital stay and doctor's visits for my daughter, and I've been buying her diapers, and…"

"So you really want to contribute to your daughter's support."

"Yeah, and it's…" Joe exhaled, overwhelmed by the issues he was facing, and then it all came tumbling out. "I have to do more. My girlfriend applied for welfare and Medicaid so she can afford to take our baby to the doctor, and I feel like she shouldn't have to do that, because I should be here taking care of them. My mother fell back in May and broke her hip and she's coming out of rehab in a few weeks, and since she can't really walk anymore, my sister put in an application for her with handicap housing. But only one of us can move with her, as her aide, and that'll be my sister. So I need to find a place to live, and if I move it makes sense for me to bring my girlfriend and daughter with me. But I need to be able to afford an apartment, so I need to work more, and I think that means…" Joe paused, afraid to say out loud the conclusion he had been coming to. "It means I won't be able to go to college at all."

"Have you told Mr. Hunter this?"

"No." Joe shook his head. "If he was mad at me about Kenyon, he'll really be mad about this."

Billy was quiet for a while. "You'll have so much more earning power if you finish college than you do as a high school graduate."

"Yeah, but what do I do in the meantime?" Joe's voice filled with emotion. "What do Ellie and Janelle do?"

"That's your girlfriend and daughter?"

"Yeah."

"If you get your degree, you can really support them."

"But they need me now! Did you grow up with your father?"

"I did."

"Well, I didn't. My father left when I was five. I grew up hating what my Pop did to us, and I always swore I would _never_ do that to my kids!"

Billy looked at him with compassion. "You have a lot on your plate, Joe. That's a lot for an eighteen-year-old to handle, and I respect you for wanting to deal with it in a responsible way."

Joe looked down at his food.

"Have you thought about going to school part-time, while you work full-time?"

"Yeah, I thought about it. I was thinking about taking classes at Meryton Community College, because they don't cost much."

"I think that's a good idea. I don't think you should put off your education all together. Where are you currently working?"

"Kmart."

"Full time?"

"Yes."

"I imagine you're getting minimum wage, or not much more. You might want to look into a job that pays better, and that provides you with some benefits."

"What are benefits?"

"Stuff like health insurance, paid sick time. Right now, if you miss any days of work, do you get paid?"

"No."

"Well, you don't want that to happen if you're trying to support a family. And uh…" Billy hesitated. "I'm not sure it's my place to bring this up, but I really think you and your girlfriend need to think about getting married."

Joe was a little startled. He had never considered getting married at this age. Then again, he wasn't planning to be a father this young, either. "Why?"

"Because you can cover your wife and daughter under your health insurance if you're married. You can probably cover your daughter if she's living with you, but if you want to take care of Ellie, she needs to be your wife."

Joe furrowed his brow. He knew he'd always be there for Janelle, and he loved Ellie. But given what had happened with both their parents, marriage didn't have a good track record in their families.

"Look, Joe, I feel like I've told you a lot of things you should do, and I didn't really want to do that. Any decision you make, you're the one who has to live with it. What I think, or what Mr. Hunter thinks, or anybody else, really doesn't matter. What counts are you and this little family that you now have. Like you said, you need to do what's best for you and for them. All I can do is advise you and tell you the pros and cons of different options."

Joe nodded.

"Here's what I think you should do." Billy suddenly laughed. "I know I just said I wouldn't tell you what to do, but I'm doing it anyway. I want you to think about where you want to be in twenty or thirty years, what you want your life to be like. At that time, if you look back, what would you regret doing or not doing? That might help you to make these decisions."

Regret. That's what Pop had talked about, how many regrets he had. Joe nodded again. "Thanks, Billy."

The other man smiled. "So how do you like being a dad?"

A broad grin stretched across Joe's face. "I love it! There are days when Janelle smiles at me, and it feels like everything in the world is good."

"That's great to hear. My wife and I are expecting our first child in February, and I can't wait." Billy nodded, his expression warm and encouraging. "You're a good man, Joe. Whatever you decide, you're going to do all right."

* * *

Joe sat on the bus back to Longbourn City mulling over his conversation with Billy. His father had so many regrets; would his son have the same regrets in twenty years?

He thought about Pop getting his degree and doing something impressive with the Annabelle Hutchins House. Joe grudgingly acknowledged he was proud of him. But still, would he trade those accomplishments for his father's presence in his life the last thirteen years?

Yeah, he would, he admitted. He absolutely would.

He disembarked at the stop closest to his home, absently taking in the sounds of someone's radio playing from an open window.

"_This is DJ Smooth bringing you the best R&B of the '70s and '80s, right here on WMRN, the rhythm of Meryton!"_

As Joe started walking toward his apartment, a song came on that he remembered vaguely from elementary school. When he heard the first line, his jaw dropped. The words could have been written for him and Ellie. His feet came to a sudden halt as he stopped to listen.

_At seventeen we fell in love_

_High school sweethearts_

_Love was so brand new_

_We took the vows of man and wife_

_Forever, for life_

_I remember how we made our way_

_A little patience, the times we prayed_

_Can't imagine that this love is through_

_Feeling the pain, girl_

_When you lose_

_Oh, it's too hot (too hot)_

_Too hot, lady (too hot)_

_Gotta run for shelter_

_Gotta run for shade_

_It's too hot (too hot)_

_Too hot, lady (too hot)_

_Gotta cool this anger_

_What a mess we made_

_So long ago_

_You were my love_

_Oh, my love_

Joe sat on a nearby stoop, his heart beating quickly. His parents, Ellie's parents, and the couple in this song. None of them made it. He and Ellie had lived with the pain of broken marriages and love crushed by circumstances for most of their lives. Why should they expect to be any different? Would they put Janelle through what they had been through?

As the song drifted to an end, the DJ's voice spoke over it. _"That was 'Too Hot' by Kool and the Gang from 1979. Yeah, losing love is hard, but DJ Smooth's not going to let that depress you. So here's Kool and the Gang again, this time from 1985."_

_Let's take a walk together near the ocean shore_

_Hand in hand you and I_

_Let's cherish every moment we have been given_

_The time is passing by_

_I often pray before I lay down by your side_

_If you receive your calling before I awake_

_Could I make it through the night?_

_..._

_The world is always changing_

_Nothing stays the same_

_But love will stand the test of time_

_The next life that we live in_

_Remains to be seen_

_Will you be by my side?_

_..._

_Cherish the love we have_

_We should cherish the life we live_

_Cherish the love_

_Cherish the life_

_Cherish the love_

Joe thought back on his last year with Ellie. Their first date and first kiss. Talking about their parents on the swing set. Slow dancing and realizing he was in love. Fooling around together and learning how to please each other sexually. Ellie becoming close to his mother. Their painful conflicts and misunderstandings, and yet how they were always drawn back together. And the most precious of memories, such as the Valentine's Day dance and the birth of their daughter.

_Can't imagine that this love is through_

Or

_Love will stand the test of time_

Which one would it be?

* * *

**Author's Note: **Billy's words were prophetic: he and Joe would never see each other again. Billy dies tragically almost two years before the Bennet and Darcy families cross paths once more. However, the son Billy's wife was expecting in this chapter and the second daughter born to Joe and Ellie will one day fall in love. But you already know that story!

* "Too Hot." Kool and the Gang, DeLite Records, 1979. You can listen to it here: www. youtube. com/watch?v=ryRgOU76VP8 (remove spaces after dots)

* "Cherish." Kool and the Gang, Mercury, 1985. IMO, the original is _**so **_much better than the one from the _17 Again _soundtrack, and the video on Youtube is very appropriate for this story: www. youtube. com/watch?v=aUb_3Ynz_tk (remove spaces after dots)

**Any comments? I would love some!**


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22**

"Congratulations, Ellie," Jessie said as she handed her the GED certificate, dated August 21, 1987.

Ellie took the document, her heart filling with joy. She wouldn't have guessed she'd be happier about getting her GED than actually graduating, but she was. She knew how hard she had worked for it, studying much more than she ever had in high school. She'd even managed to perform decently on the math test. More than that, she believed that for the first time she had become an example for her daughter to emulate. She hadn't given up.

She stopped by the child care center to pick up her baby, telling the staff there that she was done and wouldn't be back. "We're going to miss Janelle!" one of the young workers told her. "But congratulations to you."

Walking home while pushing Janelle in her carriage, Ellie felt lighthearted, excited and invincible. She wondered if this was what it was like for the older Janelle when she returned to her maiden name: a sudden point in time when she realized she was stronger than she had ever imagined.

Two pieces of mail waited for her at home, informing her that she had been approved for both AFDC and Medicaid benefits. As she sat down to nurse Janelle and eat a sandwich—she often found she had to do these simultaneously, or she might not get a chance to eat—she thought about Joe. He had been all she could have ever hoped for in a boyfriend and the father of her child, and then some. He was supposed to leave next week for orientation at Kenyon, and he was talking about not going.

The GED experience made her understand for the first time what it must have been like for Joe, working so hard in high school in order to get accepted to college. He was going to give that up for her and Janelle, and she couldn't let him do that. It would be the most heartbreaking decision of her life, but she knew what she had to do.

She had to let him go.

* * *

Wearing only a diaper, Janelle was in Ellie's arms when she opened the door that evening, and Joe immediately reached for her. His daughter made soft gurgling sounds, letting them know she was happy to see her father.

"We were just playing on the floor," Ellie said, leading him into the living room where a blanket covered with several toys was laid in front of the television. They both sat down with their backs against the sofa. Joe held the baby on his lap and picked up a rattle, shaking it in front of her face. Janelle's eyes followed the noise and movement and she broke into a toothless grin that made her father laugh.

Ellie didn't share her daughter's smile. "I have something important I want to talk to you about."

Joe nodded. "I have something important I want to talk to you about, too."

Ellie wondered what he planned to say as she stood up to fetch her GED certificate and her benefits approval letters. She took a deep breath; she had to get through her own difficult words first. After sitting down again, she passed him the certificate.

"Oh, that's great, Ellie!" Joe leaned toward her to hug her, and stopped when he noticed her face. "What's wrong?"

Ellie looked down at Janelle and rubbed her chubby legs. "Uh… I was also approved for AFDC and Medicaid."

"Listen, Ellie, about that—"

She had to interrupt him, or she'd never get the words out. "Look, Joe, I'm going to use this to make my own way, but I'm not going to be on welfare forever. I have information on a bunch of training programs that I can sign up for now that I have my GED. I may not be able to go to beauty school like I wanted to, but I'm going to do _something_ productive with my life."

Joe started to speak, but Ellie held up her hand to stop him. "I'm going to make sure Janelle has a mother she can be proud of. She already has a father she can look up to, and even more when you graduate from Kenyon."

"Ellie, I already told you I'm not going."

"Yes, you are, Joe!" The forcefulness of her voice surprised her. "You have to! Don't give up this chance. I'll take care of Janelle, on my own. Whenever you're at home, you can see her as often as you want. And don't worry about child support. You don't owe me anything. Go to school and make you dreams come true." Her voice started breaking. "Be the happy-go-lucky young man you never got to be. You can go out with other girls, too—don't even think about me. I was going to add, just don't forget about your daughter, but I know you won't."

Joe just stared at her. With tears in her eyes, she continued. "I'll make sure I raise her right. I'll keep her out of trouble and make sure she does good in school, just like her father. And I'll always tell her what a good man her daddy is, how sweet and smart and loving he is…" her voice trailed to a whisper "…I promise you, Joe."

Joe continued to stare at Ellie, and she wished he would say something. Janelle started to fuss. Ellie picked her up and rested the infant's head on her shoulder, sticking a finger inside her diaper. "She's wet."

"I'll change her," Joe said.

"No, I got it." Ellie stood abruptly and left the room with Janelle. After changing her daughter's diaper in her bedroom, she took a moment to compose herself, wiping her face with a baby wipe.

Ellie returned and bent down to hand the baby to Joe before sitting. He lifted Janelle close to his heart and pressed his lips against her forehead, and then placed her on her tummy on the blanket. After moving a few toys in front of Janelle's face to capture her attention, he turned back to Ellie. He rested his hand on her cheek and leaned toward her to gently touch her lips with his own. She closed her eyes to kiss him back, but when his tongue probed her mouth, she pulled away. "Please don't make it any harder for me to say goodbye to you."

"You don't have to. I'm not going anywhere."

Ellie's eyes flicked from his face to their daughter. "I told you I can do this on my own."

"I know, and I believe you. But I want to do it with you."

She shook her head. "No. Go after you dreams. Get your degree. We'll still be here."

"Going to college isn't the only dream I have, Ellie. I also think about the kind of husband and father I want to be."

She stared at him, her eyes suddenly widening. "Wait. Did you say husband?"

Joe grinned. "Yeah, I did. Ellie, will you marry me?"

She stared again in bewilderment. "Is that what you came here to talk to me about?"

Joe's smile got bigger as he nodded. "That's what I came to talk to you about."

Ellie hesitated. "Are you sure? Do you know what you're saying?"

He gazed deeply into her eyes. "Ellie, I've never been so sure of anything in my life! I want to spend my life with you. I want us to create a home for Janelle together. I love you, and I want you to be my wife."

She looked down and started rattling a set of plastic keys in front of Janelle. She continued to play and coo with her daughter for a full minute, stalling. Dreams don't come true—she had accepted that. She was strong enough to survive on her own—she had accepted that, too.

"Look at me, Ellie."

She looked up to see Joe on bended knee in front of her, although unlike the usual scenario he had to look down instead of up. He took her hands in his own, wearing a surprisingly confident smile for someone who hadn't yet received an answer. "I love you, Ellie, and I want to spend my life with you. Will you marry me?"

Prince Charming was on his knee proposing to her! Her heart started racing. She had thought dreams didn't come true—but she had been wrong before about a lot of things. She now knew she was strong enough to survive on her own—but hell, she didn't _want_ to!

She looked at the soulful eyes and dimpled smile of the young man whom she loved with all her heart. Oh, he was _definitely_ manly perfection! "Yes."

"Yes, what? You'll marry me?"

She nodded, and smiled for the first time since he'd entered the apartment that day. "Yes!"

Joe looked both astounded and ecstatic. "You're _sure_?!"

Ellie threw her arms around his neck and squeezed him tightly. "Oh, Joe! My Joseph! Do you know how much I love you? You know how much I dreamed of us being together forever? I just didn't think it was fair to you—"

He interrupted by kissing her, and this time she welcomed his tongue. Her smile widened and she choked on a giggle. She had to break their kiss as she bubbled over with laughter. Joe started laughing too, and then scooped Janelle up. "Hey, little one," he said, cradling her in his arms, "Your mother and I are getting married!"

***************

**I would love some comments! What do you think about Joe and Ellie getting married?**


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23**

"Ellie, I didn't make my own marriage work, and I did it the right way! I was grown, done with high school, had my cosmetology license and _wasn't _pregnant! What makes you think you can do a better job than I did?"

Ellie drew back, stung. She had expected her mother to be happy for her, not throw her mistakes back into her face. Yet what could she say in her defense? She _had _messed up, and her mother hadn't, and yet her mother's marriage had ended in divorce. No argument would change that. Yes, she and Joe really loved each other, but her parents had loved each other at one time. Joe was a good man, but so was Daddy. And Alvin and Arlene Jameson had started out in a better position than her and Joe.

Ellie exhaled, wondering if she and Joe were just fooling themselves. Yet her heart felt so sure that marrying him was the right thing to do. "You're right, Mama. There's no guarantees. But we believe in each other. Shouldn't we have the chance to try?"

"It's not like trying a new hair style, Ellie!"

"I _know_ that!"

"Do you?" Mama turned away from Ellie, and then turned back, her face pained. "Do you really? Do you know what it's like to go through all that pain and anger and hurt? To feel like you failed, not just yourself, but your children, and now they're not going to have a father in the house like they should? Do you want Janelle to go through that?"

"No, I don't want Janelle to go through that, but you're wrong, Mama! I do know what it's like!" She answered her mother's skeptical expression. "I was there, remember?"

Seeing Mama's face soften, Ellie spoke more gently. "Joe's been through his parents breaking up, too, and we know we don't want our daughter to go through it. So we're going to make this work. We have to."

Her mother was silent for minute, her face a jumble of emotions. "I can't believe how much you've grown up in the past year," she finally said.

"I had to."

Mama smiled a little. "That's right, you did. Okay then, Ellie. I don't want you to get hurt, but you know that whatever you do, I'm behind you one hundred percent."

Ellie walked over to hug her tightly. "I know that, Mama. I've always known."

* * *

"You are the most bullheaded young man I know! And I'm very disappointed in Billy, too, for not smacking some sense into your head!"

"Why, because he didn't say what you wanted him to say?"

"Billy can give you all the pie-in-the-sky advice he wants, but he's got _his_ already! You're the one who doesn't, Joe!"

Joe was steaming, and so tempted to hang up the phone. Mr. Hunter had called on Sunday night to be sure Joe was catching the bus to Kenyon in the morning, and was none too happy when Joe told him he wasn't. They'd been arguing about it for the last fifteen minutes.

He took a few deep breaths before he spoke again. "Believe it or not, Mr. Hunter, I've thought about everything you've ever told me. But I know what I need to do. I'm making this decision with my eyes wide open."

"Joe—"

"Stop, Mr. Hunter! I'm not going to keep going around with you about this. I'm a grown man now, not a little kid, and I've made my decision. One thing Billy asked me was where I wanted to be in twenty or thirty years. When he put it like that, I knew exactly what I needed to do."

Mr. Hunter didn't answer. After a minute of listening to him breath, Joe said, "Listen, I gotta go."

"No, wait! I'm looking up something for you."

"What are you talking about?"

"You have a pen and paper?"

"Why?"

"Just get them. I want to give you some numbers."

Joe rolled his eyes. Did Mr. Hunter want to sic someone else on him now? Out of long-held respect for the man, however, he picked up a pen. "Shoot."

Mr. Hunter gave Joe two numbers, the first for a Marlene Masterson, and the second for a John and Cora Phillips. "Marlene works in human resources for the school department. Tell her I sent you, and she'll let you know what openings are available in the schools that don't require a degree. The school system provides excellent benefits, Joe."

Joe stared down at the number. Mr. Hunter was trying to help him find a better job?

"Cora Phillips was one of the lunch ladies at Warwick. Do you remember her?"

"Oh yeah, Mrs. Phillips."

"I've gotten to know her and her husband well over the years. He's a handyman and he's done some work on my house. They're both retired now, and they have a finished basement they want to rent it out for additional income. They'll probably give you a good deal on the place and you won't have to worry about buying furniture."

A stunned silence followed. "Joe?" Mr. Hunter finally said. "You still there?"

"Yeah, um, thanks," Joe managed to say.

Mr. Hunter cleared his throat. "Let me know how it goes. And Joe? Give Ellie my best."

* * *

The Phillips lived in a neighborhood close to Ellie's uncle Dave. Mrs. Phillips was the same short, plump woman with honey-colored skin and freckles that they recalled from junior high. Joe and Ellie were surprised that she remembered both of them by name. "You must have served lunches to thousands of kids over the years!" Ellie exclaimed.

Mrs. Phillips nodded. "Yes, and many of them just snatch their lunches and go. Others stop, smile and say hello and thank you. I always remember the children like that, and that includes both of you."

She led them on a tour of the house. "This key," she indicated, "fits the backdoor." The backdoor opened into a small entryway with two inner doors, one of which led to the kitchen and the other to the basement. "There's a mini-fridge in the basement, enough for your little girl's bottles and maybe a few other things. You're welcome to come up and use the kitchen whenever you like. We'll clear off a shelf for you so you can store and cook your own food. But we'd also love to have you join us for dinner regularly. We just ask that you not enter the rest of the house without our permission."

"No problem," Joe said.

She led them down the stairs to the basement. To the left at the bottom of the steps was a space that held the furnace, storage area, and laundry room, which they were also welcome to use. To the right stood another locked door, for which Mrs. Phillips provided another key.

The door opened to a large, open, carpeted room that contained a tall bookshelf, wardrobe and dresser against the far wall, as well as a door leading to a full bathroom. In the middle of the room stood a queen-sized bed facing a TV stand, while a small table and chairs were positioned by the near wall, along with the three-foot tall mini-fridge and a small cabinet that held a microwave oven. "It's perfect," Ellie smiled.

"And there's plenty of room for the crib and playpen," Joe added.

"Is $250 a month fair?" Mrs. Phillips asked. "It would include everything except your phone. There's a phone jack, but you'll have to call the phone company yourself to install a line."

"It's more than fair," Joe replied.

"I know you're not planning on moving in until this weekend, but you're welcome to spend a little time in here right now, get comfortable, and think about where you might put your things."

Joe and Ellie thanked her, and then she chucked the chin of Janelle, who was in Ellie's arms. "By the way," she smiled, "anytime you two want to go out on a date, I'd be more than happy to watch her. I don't have any grandkids yet and I love babies!"

After she left them alone, Joe kicked off his shoes and flopped down on the bed. "Nice," he said. "This is really comfortable. Come lie down, Ellie."

She placed Janelle on her father's chest and lay down beside him. "Mmm, you're right. I can't wait to christen this bed."

Joe raised his eyebrows provocatively. "What do you have in mind?"

She grinned. "I can think of lots of fun things to do on it!"

He laughed. "Oh, yeah! But not right now!"

Ellie giggled. "Yeah, we should probably wait until we officially move in. Hey, look at her!"

Joe smiled when he saw Janelle attempting, not very successfully, to raise herself up on her arms so she could see his face. Drool was dribbling onto his shirt, but he didn't care. Lying down with his daughter and Ellie in what was going to be their home felt so _right. _He rubbed Janelle's back with one hand and reached out to entwine his other with Ellie's.

"Are Pookie and Haley moving this weekend, too?"

"They have to. The landlord says we have to be out by August 31st. The good thing is, one of the handicap housing places came through, and they said Haley could move in to get it ready for my mother when she gets out of rehab in two weeks. And since Pookie just finished his apprenticeship and doesn't have a job yet, my pop said he could stay with him for a while."

"That's amazing, huh? Everything's working out for all of us."

"Yeah, it is."

"And you have a new job now, too."

"Yeah, I couldn't believe the woman hired me right on the spot. She said that the person who had been hired for the position had some sort of family thing come up, and had to move out of state."

Ellie rolled onto her side facing him, propping her head up on her elbow. "Do you think you'll like it, Joe?"

He paused for a second. The custodial position at one of Meryton's elementary schools would pay almost twice as much as his job at Kmart, along with providing the great benefits Mr. Hunter had mentioned. But Joe had struggled with the idea of being a janitor after expecting to become a college student pursuing a professional career.

A talk with Haley, however, helped him see the position in a new light. "I think so, Ellie. Haley told me that there's no shame in working with your hands. I mean, that's what she does, right? My father said something to me about that, too."

"Yeah, but Haley's also a businesswoman."

Joe grinned. "Yeah, she told me she would've hired me if she could afford to. But since she can't, she said I need to look for ways to make the job something I can grow in. And you know what? When I visited the school yesterday, they had this big bulletin board with all this information about programs and activities for families and children. I realized, what better place to be to learn about all the things we can do for Janelle than a school."

Ellie grinned. "You want to make Janelle a brainiac like you!"

He laughed and lifted his daughter to kiss her nose. "Our baby's already a genius!"

"So you're just… developing her talents?" Ellie winked.

"Exactly! The other good thing is that when I talked to the principal, he said that because they don't have a lot of male teachers, he always asks any of the men on staff if they want to serve as big brothers to some of the boys in the school who aren't doing well or who like to act up."

"You told him yes, right?"

When he nodded, she sat up. "Aw, Joe! See, that's what I love about you!" She leaned over and kissed him. "You're wet."

"The kid's drooling on me, Ellie," he laughed.

"Mama said that means her teeth are going to start coming in."

Warmth spread through Joe as he realized the impact of Ellie's words. Janelle would get her first teeth… and learn to walk… and talk… and so much more, and he would be there for it.

Ellie was looking at him tenderly. "What are you thinking?"

Joe reached out to caress her face. "When are we getting married, honey?"

"Daddy asked if we could do it in November. He wants to come, but he can't fly up until the week before Thanksgiving."

A practical thought flitted into his head that November would work well, since that was when his health insurance plan would kick in and Ellie could hold onto her Medicaid benefits until then. But the thought flew back out just as quickly when Ellie snuggled against him. "I can't wait to marry you, my darling Joseph."

He was too overwhelmed with emotion to speak, so he just kissed his beautiful fiancée, the mother of his child, until she laughed and said they better stop before they christened the bed a few days too early.


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24**

_Darling, oh..._

_When we get married_

_We'll have a big celebration_

_And send invitations_

_To all our friends and relations_

_And we'll have a ball_

_Dancing and all_

_When we get married_

"When We Get Married." Larry Graham, 1980.

* * *

The tinkling sounds of the crib mobile gradually penetrated Joe's consciousness as he slowly opened his eyes on Saturday, November 21st. Then he sat up with a start—this was his wedding day—today!

He looked at the empty space beside him. Ellie was up, probably in the bathroom or perhaps upstairs making breakfast. And of course, the delicate bells of the mobile being batted around meant his daughter was also awake.

Joe rose and Janelle, spotting him, began to babble cheerfully. He smiled. "Not yet, little one. Nature's calling."

When he started to walk away she let out a cry, so he picked her up and carried her into the bathroom, whistling the tune to Larry Graham's "When We Get Married" on the way. Joe placed Janelle on the small rug beside him while he relieved himself, and then washed his hands and lifted her into his arms again. "Now that I'm done, let's check you."

After a finger quickly inserted in her diaper showed that she was dry, Joe carried her back into the main room to find Ellie, wearing a peach dress, stockings and pumps, sitting on the bed with her legs crossed and her top foot swinging. He saw cute and sexy, Janelle saw, "Mommy," and they both let out a happy sigh in unison.

Janelle and Ellie reached for each other together, and Ellie began to feed her daughter with a bottle she had already warmed. While Janelle slurped happily, Joe watched, filled with contentment. When their daughter was done eating and burping, Ellie placed her on the bed between them. "Now I have something for you."

"You made me breakfast?"

Ellie laughed. "No, something better."

He raised his eyebrows as she walked over to the mini-fridge and pulled out a small white cardboard box. When she returned to the bed, she opened the box and picked up one of two small pieces of white cake covered with gooey white frosting.

He looked at her. "What's that?"

Ellie grinned mischievously and suddenly smashed the piece of cake against his mouth, smearing icing around his lips and spilling crumbs on his t-shirt. "I always wanted to do that," she snickered.

Joe ran his tongue around his mouth to lick off the sweet frosting. "Ohh, you're in trouble!" He reached for the second piece of cake and returned the favor. Ellie ducked and he managed to connect the cake with her ear. She squealed. "Ugh, Joe, that's nasty!"

He leaned back and began lick the side of her ear. "Mmm," his voice rumbled. "Tastes pretty good to me."

Ellie's eyelids fluttered. "Joe… Janelle… is right here."

He grinned as he sucked on her earlobe. "You started it."

She giggled and sighed. "I did, huh?"

He felt Janelle's little hands against his leg and reluctantly sat up. Reaching for the box, he wiped some frosting off the side and placed his finger inside Janelle's mouth. She began to suck greedily. "Where did you get this, Ellie?"

"From a bakery that makes wedding cakes. I told them I was getting married and they gave me some samples."

Joe laughed. "I think they're expecting you to come back and buya cake."

She scoffed. "C'mon, they must know that not everybody they give samples to is going to buy from them. Anyway, I thought it would be nice to do the cutting the cake thing together, since we're not having a reception."

Joe chuckled and leaned over to kiss her, a sweet, sticky kiss. His finger no longer in her mouth, Janelle protested, wanting more. Joe touched the cake box for a second swipe, and then a third as Janelle cleaned his finger again. He started to reach for another, but Ellie grabbed his hand to stop him. "She doesn't need any more of that stuff, Joe! She'll get a sugar high."

"A little baby can't get one, can she?"

"Sure she can! And unlike an older kid, she can't run around to work it off."

Janelle started crying, opening her mouth to ask her father for another taste. "She's fussing."

"Let her fuss! I don't want to spoil her."

Joe licked his own finger and picked up Janelle to comfort her instead. He turned and stared at Ellie with a soft, tender intensity.

"What?" she said.

"This was really nice, Ellie. I was thinking about how you do things like that. Make everything fun."

She smiled shyly.

"I just realized that I'm going to wake up every day for the rest of my life next to someone who makes me feel so… _happy_. I've been in love with you since I was ten, and now I'm going to be with you forever."

Ellie lowered her eyes. "I think I've been in love with you my whole life, Joe."

He laughed a little. "You haven't known me your whole life."

She placed her hand against his cheek. "I know. I mean… my whole life I've dreamed about loving somebody and being loved by them like this. You're my dream come true."

Joe turned his head to kiss her palm. "We should get going," he replied huskily. "We don't want to be late to our own wedding."

After Joe and Ellie left the baby with Mrs. Phillips, Ms. Jameson picked them up to drive them to the courthouse. The other three witnesses were already waiting for them in the judge's chambers: Haley, pushing the older Janelle in a wheelchair, and Ellie's father.

Joe had been afraid that he wouldn't be able to get the words out, but when the time came, he and Ellie both were able to recite their vows with joy and conviction.

"I, Joseph Martin Bennet, take thee, Ellie Marie Jameson, to be my wedded Wife…"

"I, Ellie Marie Jameson, take thee, Joseph Martin Bennet, to be my wedded Husband…"

"To have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part."

After they exchanged the rings, the judge said, "By the authority vested in me by the state of Ohio, I can now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss each other."

Joe took Ellie into his arms, and it felt as if it were for the very first time, not the culmination of a journey that had begun sixteen months earlier. As her body melted against him and her hands caressed his face, she tasted of warm, sweet bliss, his love, his wife, forever.

"Ahem!" Haley said. "There'll be plenty of time for that later."

The judge and witnesses laughed, and Joe and Ellie pulled apart, reluctantly and sheepishly.

"Joe and Ellie," Arlene said, "We decided that since you aren't having a reception, we wanted to take you out to lunch. Is that okay?"

"What about the baby?" Ellie asked.

"I talked to Mrs. Phillips, and she agreed to watch her for a while longer."

Joe took Ellie's hand and they slipped their fingers in and out of one another's, a temporary way to try to contain their elation and excitement. "Going out to lunch would be great," Joe said. "Thank you."

* * *

They arrived at A Taste of Home, a classy restaurant famous for its Sunday jazz brunches and specializing in healthy versions of traditional soul food and Southern cooking. "The Bennet party," Mama said.

"Right this way," said the hostess. Instead of guiding them to seats in the main restaurant, however, she led them to a banquet room in the back. When the hostess opened the doors, a chorus of voices shouted, "Surprise!" and their eyes took in a room filled with balloons and crepe paper wedding bells and the faces of siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles and friends.

Everyone rose to greet and embrace the newlyweds. "Angie told me to tell you congratulations," Dwayne, now a student at Meryton State, said about his girlfriend, a freshman at Northwestern in Illinois. "She'll see you when she comes home for Christmas."

At happy as she was to see everyone, Ellie was especially delighted that the Phillips had come with little Janelle. She eagerly reached for her daughter and kissed her adorable round cheeks over and over.

Joe took Janelle's tiny hand and rubbed it over his wedding band. "Feel that, little one? That means Mommy and Daddy are married!"

Janelle, of course, wanted nothing more than to put her mouth on his hand so she could taste the ring. Joe allowed her to drool on it for a minute, and then suddenly caught sight of a man with a moustache and short beard who was sitting next to his mother and hadn't risen from his seat with the rest of the guests. He took Ellie's hand. "Come with me."

He led her to the man, whom she recognized immediately. His son was the spitting image of him, although Joe was clean shaven and the man's eyes were wearier. "Pop," Joe said, "This is my wife Ellie, and my daughter Janelle."

The man rose and held out his hand. Ellie ignored the hand, passed the baby to Joe, and hugged him. "I am _so _happy to meet you!" she beamed when she pulled back. "I've heard so much about you, I feel like I know you already."

In response to his startled expression, she added, "Know you and admire you, Mr. Bennet."

"Larry," he said.

Ellie smiled again. "Larry. Thank you so much for coming."

The man nodded, his face still serious. "Do you think it would be okay if I held my granddaughter?"

Joe handed Janelle to him, and when she flashed a two-toothed grin, Larry finally broke out into a smile and then laughter, the lines around his eyes crinkling upward.

Ellie bent down to hug the older Janelle, who was next to him. "This is one of the happiest days of my life," Janelle told her.

"Mine, too!"

"You was already like a daughter to me, Ellie, and now you're one for real."

Ellie kissed her cheek with tears in her eyes. Janelle's words never failed to touch her.

The newlyweds and their guests eventually settled down to a delicious meal and an assortment of pies for dessert. When the group had finished eating, Mama walked over to a table in the corner that was covered with gifts. "OK, everyone, time to open the wedding presents!"

Most of the gifts were traditional household items, mixed in with a few romantic objects such as scented candles and slow jam tapes. Karima had, as always, given them baby clothes for Janelle. She kept apologizing. "I know I was supposed to get something for you two, but she's just so cute!"

Ellie laughed. "It's okay, Karima, it really is!"

Mama's present was one of the last two boxes on the table. "Don't open this now," she said. "This is for later."

Joe shook the small rectangular box. "I can't hear anything. What is it?"

"It's something for me to wear, isn't it, Mama?"

Her mother grinned smugly. "You'll just have to wait and see!"

The last box was from Pookie and Haley, who also instructed them to open it later. Joe shook the package, and this one rattled quite a bit. "OK, you have to tell us what this is."

Pookie grinned. "If we told you, we'd have to kill you!"

Haley elbowed her brother to shut him up. "We have something else for you." She stood and walked over, handing Joe a small envelope. "You can open this one now."

Joe unsealed the envelope and pulled out a car key. "You bought us a car?!" he cried in astonishment.

Haley laughed. "Don't get too excited, you haven't seen it yet. It's an old car and doesn't look that great—"

"But it's still a nice car!" Pookie interjected. "The engine is really smooth. I worked on it myself."

"It's parked near here. We'll take it to you when we leave," Haley added. "We just thought with winter coming, you might not want to have to travel around with your baby on the bus."

Already overwhelmed with gratitude for all the gifts, especially the last one, Ellie was surprised when her father stood up. "I have something for you, too."

"Something we can open now?" Joe joked.

Daddy laughed. "Yeah, it's something you can open now." He walked over and handed them another envelope.

Ellie opened this one, and found two card keys for a room at the Sheraton Hotel within. She stared at her father in amazement while the crowd ooh'ed and aah'ed.

"You need some kind of honeymoon, right?" he said. "I paid for two nights, so you don't have to worry about clearing out by eleven tomorrow morning. They have my credit card number, so you can also order room service. Just don't go nuts."

Amid the laughter of the crowd, Ellie stood to hug and kiss her father. "I really love you, Daddy," she said.

"I love you, too, baby. Always have and always will."

"Take good care of my girl, you hear?" Daddy told Joe when the two men shook hands. "Both my girls."

"I will," Joe answered firmly.

In the applause that followed, the assembled guests almost didn't notice Larry stand. "Wait!" Ellie shouted to quiet the crowd. "I think my father-in-law wants to say something."

When the room had hushed again, Larry looked around at everyone. "I'm Larry," he said. "I'm Joe's dad." He fidgeted with a napkin in his hand for a few seconds. "Um… I think one thing most parents hope for is that their children won't repeat their mistakes. On the surface, it looks like Joe repeated mine."

He placed his hand upon the shoulder of Joe's mother. Ellie noticed Janelle move her own gnarled hand on top of his and gently pat it. It seemed to give him confidence to continue.

"My wife and I were in the same position once. We were young and unwed and expecting a baby, and like Joe and Ellie, we decided that getting married was the right thing to do." He paused to look around again. "They say that most young marriages don't make it, and we were one of those that failed. It's _very_ hard, emotionally and financially, to take on that type of commitment when you're so young."

Ellie glanced at Joe's furrowed expression, unsure where Larry was going or what Joe was thinking about his words.

Larry turned to the newlyweds. "But I look around here today, and I realize you're not like me at all, son. My parents and your mother's father were totally against us getting married, and we had to try to make it on our own. And we couldn't. Life is too hard to try to do it on your own."

He looked up at the crowd again, his voice rising. "But look at this room! Joe and Ellie, you are _surrounded_ by people who love you and have your backs!"

"Preach it!" Ellie's mother shouted.

"Fight for this marriage, Joe and Ellie! Don't give up! When it gets tough, everyone in this room will be here to lift up your arms. Including me."

Ellie looked again at her new husband. A tear was rolling down his face. She stood up and walked over to take her father-in-law by the hand, leading him back to Joe. Joe rose to embrace his father, and both men's shoulders shook.

A hush fell across the room as the guests sat in awe of the sacred moment that enveloped them. After a minute, baby Janelle, who had been passed around from arm to arm, broke the silence with a loud babble that made everyone laugh, her tearful father and grandfather included.

"This! _This_ is why we're all here! Give it up, y'all!" Mama said. As the assembly began to applaud, Ellie took her child from the latest hands holding her and walked over to join Joe and Larry for a three-generational hug.

* * *

"**When We Get Married." Larry Graham, 1980. **Graham's version is the one I was familiar with, but I couldn't find it on YouTube. It turns out to have been a cover of an earlier song performed by the soul group The Intruders in 1970, and the doo-wop group The Dreamlovers in 1961. The Intruders' version can be heard at:

www. youtube. com/watch?v=xuQMehDnY5k&feature=fvw (remove spaces after dots)

The Dreamlovers' version is here:

www. youtube. com/watch?v=x3Iovx17W-c (remove spaces after dots)

**What did you think of Joe and Ellie's wedding and unexpected reception? Please let me know!**


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter 25**

___Lovin' you  
Has made my life much sweeter, baby  
Baby, since I've got you  
Everything is alright_

_When I'm lovin' you  
I feel so good inside, ooh baby  
When I make love to you  
I'm in paradise, I'm in paradise, oh_

...

_Needing you  
I need you in everything I do  
Baby, since I've got you  
My life is complete_

...

_As long as I keep food on the table  
Long as I keep the bills paid, baby  
Long as I'm lovin' you  
Long as you're lovin' me  
Everything is alright._

"Lovin' You." The O'Jays, 1987.

* * *

A few hours later, Joe and Ellie finally found themselves alone in their hotel room. "You okay?" Joe asked, noticing her sad expression.

"Yeah… just missing Janelle." Ellie was experiencing her first separation from the baby because Mama had taken her granddaughter for the rest of the weekend.

Joe put his arms around her. "Your mother was right, honey. We need this time alone."

She kissed him softly. "I know."

He took her hand and led her to the bed. "Come on, let's take a look at the other presents."

In addition to the gifts given by Haley and Pookie and her mother, Ellie was surprised to see a third box on the bed. "What's that?"

"Pop handed it to me just before we left."

She smiled. "It was good to have him there, huh?"

"Yeah, it was," Joe said as he started to open the package. He pulled out two flat pieces, both covered in brown paper. He unwrapped one. "Look at this, Ellie."

She leaned over to see a framed photograph of his family, parents and siblings included. "Hey, that's nice! Were you about three years old then?"

"Something like that."

"You were very cute!" she commented, kissing his cheek.

Joe unwrapped the second flat to find a small oil painting of his mother as a young woman. Although Janelle wasn't smiling in the portrait, her eyes were filled with laughter and hope.

"Wow, that's beautiful," Ellie said slowly. "Did your dad do this?"

He nodded while continuing to gaze at the painting. Ellie slipped her arms around his waist from behind and rested her head against his back, letting him appreciate the gift in silence. Finally, he placed both pictures on the nightstand. "Let's open the rest."

Ellie reached for the box from her mother, opening it to uncover a sheer red baby doll negligee with matching thong panties. "I like it!" Joe hooted. "Try it on."

"Nah, you have to wait 'til after we open the last one," she teased before picking up the present from Joe's siblings. She quickly opened it, pulled the first item out and snickered.

"What is it?"

She handed a book to him, and he burst out laughing. "_Erotic Pleasures: 40 Ways to Please Your Partner_," Joe read. "I guess they think we need some help!"

The box contained a variety of additional items, including textured condoms, massage oils, lubricants, and a few things neither Joe nor Ellie could identify. Ellie was laughing so hard she was almost crying. "What are we supposed to do with some of this stuff, Joe?"

"I guess… that's what… the book is for!" he gasped between guffaws.

When they finally settled down, Ellie announced that she was going to try on the negligee. When she stood to walk toward the bathroom, Joe objected. "Come on, Ellie, I've seen you naked."

She smiled coyly. "You honestly think that if I take my clothes off now, you're going to let me put something else on, even something that looks like this?"

He laughed. "OK, you have a point."

Once changed, Ellie looked at herself in the bathroom mirror, thinking that she looked good. Most of the baby fat around her waist was gone, and while her boobs had shrunk a little since she had started trying to wean Janelle, they were still firm and round. All in all, the outfit made her feel very sexy and aroused.

She walked out to find Joe intently perusing the manual. He looked up when her heard her and whistled. "So you like it?" she said.

"I love it! Now take it off."

She laughed. "I knew it! I knew you'd say that!" Instead of disrobing, she walked back to the bed and glanced at the book. "Interesting?"

Joe grinned. "Oh yeah. I want to try something."

Ellie raised her eyebrows provocatively and then reached for the radio beside the bed. After fiddling with it for a moment, she located WMRN, which played nothing but slow jams on Saturday evenings. She felt an impatient Joe tugging at the straps of her nightie. "Uh-uh, you wait," she said. "You have more clothes on than I do."

A short while later, they were both nude, and the O'Jay's "Lovin' You" played on the radio. Joe was doing amazing things with his tongue that left her screaming in an explosion of light and heat and color. When they soon after made love the more traditional way, she found herself climaxing again and again. Even after Joe's own orgasm, he remained inside her as they clung together, their bodies joined as one. "Ellie, my incredible wife!" he whispered over and over. "Oh, my Joseph!" was all she could say in response.

By the time they checked out the following evening, Ellie and Joe had tried a little of everything that was in the box, and quite a few of the forty ways to please each other.

* * *

Ellie finally got Janelle down for a nap, and then sat at the small table to try to decide what to do. It was the week before Christmas and instead of looking forward to spending the holiday as Mrs. Bennet for the first time, she was on the verge of tears.

_How could you be so stupid! _she berated herself. Then she stopped, remembering the advice of Jessie about not repeating those negative tapes. She could continue to bash herself, or try to come up with a plan of action.

A half hour later, she was even more discouraged. What would happen to all their dreams? She and Joe had received some gifts of money among their wedding presents, and by pooling it with what remained of Joe's college fund, had used it to enroll Joe in two classes at Meryton Community College and register Ellie for a cosmetology program, both beginning right after the New Year.

But now… there was no way she could be around all those chemicals. When she called the beauty school, a registrar informed her that so close to the program's start date, she would forfeit fifty percent of her tuition if she withdrew now. "You can always postpone your enrollment, and then you won't lose anything you've paid," the woman added. "You can start next September, or in January of next year."

September was definitely out, and waiting until the following January meant an entire year lost. She could try to get a job in the meantime, but she wouldn't be able to work for the full year, and an employer might justifiably be upset if she withheld her condition.

Another child would make it very hard to continue to live in the Phillips' basement, but finding a bigger apartment would require more money. Joe could take on a second job—Kmart had told him he was always welcome back on a part-time basis—but what would happen to his plans to start taking classes? She had screwed up his college dreams again.

When Joe came home from work that evening, he immediately noticed her sad countenance. "What's the matter?"

"Joe, I'm so sorry! I ruined everything again."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm pregnant."

Joe was silent for a while as the shock of the news registered. "How?" he asked. "I mean, we've been so careful."

"We weren't on our wedding night, Joe."

Joe groaned, likely remembering their orgy of pleasure that night. No, they hadn't been very careful.

"I'm so sorry, Joe. The beauty school said I could postpone until next year, but I don't know what I'll do in the meantime. And since we'll probably have to move, you might have to work more, and that'll mess up your plans for school—"

Joe interrupted her by putting his arms around her. "It's okay, Ellie."

"No, it's _not_ okay!"

He kissed her gently. "Yes, it is. First of all, you need to stop blaming yourself. I had as much to do with it as you did."

Ellie calmed a little as he caressed her face. "And second, Ellie, I think you and I make beautiful babies together."

"So you're not mad? But what about school, and our finances, and—"

He smiled and cupped her chin with his hand. "Everything will work out, honey, as long as we're together."

* * *

"**Lovin' You." The O'Jays, Philadelphia International Records, 1987**.

Listen to it on Youtube here:

www. youtube. com/watch?v=pbkFCnhqQPo (remove spaces after the dots)

**This is the last chapter, but there is an upcoming epilogue. Meanwhile, please let me know how you liked my story! Positive and negative comments welcome.  
**


	26. EPILOGUE

**Author's Note: Two quotes from my story, "Touch Me Again," inspired me to write "Mr. and Mrs. B," as I started trying to imagine what might have helped Elizabeth's parents to succeed in their marriage.**

QUOTE

"_Liz, I made a choice. I decided I was going to be the father I never had, and I accepted all the consequences of that choice. Looking back, it was 100% the right thing to do. Yeah, your mother has her ways and sometimes gets on my nerves. But I have my ways and sometimes get on her nerves. She's a good woman. She doesn't run around in the streets, she loves me and she loves you girls. I love her, and together we have three amazing daughters and two beautiful grandkids. And life is never boring with your mother. I'm a lucky man, Liz. No regrets." Her father's voice was emphatic by the time he finished speaking._

QUOTE

"_This ceremony is also dedicated to my parents, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph and Ellie Bennet," Liz said, as she held her hand out to indicate her mother and father seated nearby. "My parents got married at age eighteen. They were both from broken homes, they already had my sister Janelle, and I was soon to be on the way. Statistics show that the chances of a young marriage surviving under those circumstances were very slim. The odds were against them._

"_But I'm here to tell you today that not only did they make it, they thrived. They're each other's companions and best friends. In November, my parents will celebrate their thirtieth wedding anniversary." Liz beamed as she waited while the guests applauded and cheered._

**To these quotes, I will add one from my first story, "Lofty Dreams":**

QUOTE

_Daddy graduated in June, still thinking that he would attend college in the fall. Every day he would stop by my grandmother's house to visit Ma and Janelle, and it tore him up every night when he had to leave them. His own father had been in and out of his life, mostly out, and he never wanted that for his own children. He started working two jobs, and when he had saved enough money to rent an apartment, he asked Ma to marry him. I came along in August of the following year, and Dee was born a year and a half later. Daddy's plans to go to college were now permanently on hold._

_After the LOFTY dinner, I asked what he thought about the things the woman had said about dreams. He answered, "My dreams are for you girls to have the chances I never had." I hugged him tight that night, thinking how lucky my sisters and I were. Some of my friends didn't even know their fathers, while our parents had been married for eighteen years. As annoying as they could be sometimes, I never doubted that they did what they did because they loved us._

We've now come full circle. Thank you so much for reading! Special thanks to two other Austen fanfic writers: Unina who read the early chapters of this story and encouraged me to keep writing, and Enrage_femme, who, along with her husband who worked with SNCC, provided me with information and feedback for the sections on the Civil Rights Movement.

Part of the fun of this story has been the homage to the music of the '80s that I grew up with. I hope you've received as much pleasure from the music as I did.

If you've followed my series since "Lofty Dreams," you'll now find out what Joe and Will talked about in the final chapter of that tale. Enjoy.

**Epilogue**

On Monday, November 20, 2017, Ellie leaned against the railing around the deck of the beachfront cottage, the gentle breeze blowing through her hair. Warm hands encircled her waist, and she leaned back to savor the soft, moist kisses on her neck.

"Good morning, Mrs. B," Joe said. "Happy thirtieth anniversary."

She turned and placed her arms around her husband's neck, kissing him passionately. "It's not officially until tomorrow, you know," she said when they parted.

"I believe in celebrating early," he grinned.

She suckled his mouth again. "I think we can celebrate the whole week!"

Joe laughed. "I still can't believe the kids did this." The "kids" were their three adult daughters and two current and one future sons-in-law, who had presented them with a pair of plane tickets to St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, on Saturday night at their anniversary dinner. The gift included a weeklong rental of a cottage on a private beach. Their children had even made the arrangements for vacation time from their respective employers: the Meryton Public Schools, where Joe was the director of custodial services, and Children's Hospital, where Ellie worked as a medical assistant.

"Well, we needed it," she said. "Especially you, with all the homework you have!" Joe had started an evening and weekend degree program in instructional technology in September, and getting used to heavy reading and research papers after thirty years away from the classroom was a challenge.

The last year and a half had been momentous for the Bennet family, as their oldest daughter Janelle gave birth to her second child prematurely, leading to a two month hospital stay and concerns about young Philip's developmental delays. Their middle daughter Elizabeth or "Liz," conceived of Joe and Ellie's wedding night bliss, had returned home after four years of living and working in Africa to rekindle a relationship with an ex-boyfriend, whom she had married a few months prior. Their youngest daughter Deirdre, known as Dee, had purchased her first house and recently gotten engaged.

With so much happening in the family, Joe and Ellie decided that they could continue to worry about their daughters, or step back and trust that they had raised competent, strong young women who could handle whatever life threw their way. All three girls had completed college, and Liz had earned a master's degree. All had succeeded professionally and found relationships with caring young men of strong character, including Dee. Like her parents, Dee had gotten pregnant her senior year in high school, only by a young man who lacked the sense of responsibility that Joe had. Remembering their own struggles, Joe and Ellie had provided Dee with the support and guidance to finish high school and go on to college, and she and her son Kyron were now thriving.

Accepting that their daughters no longer needed them inspired Joe and Ellie to take a look at their own lives. They weren't yet fifty years old, and many more years of life and the entire world awaited them. It was time, they realized, to pursue their own dreams. For Joe, that included finally embarking upon his college degree.

Ellie's dream was to travel out of the U.S., and this anniversary gift was her first opportunity. Receiving the gift was special bonus after an already wonderful party on Saturday. From throughout the country, all five of Joe and Ellie's siblings had attended, along with their spouses and children. Best of all were the presences of those youngest and oldest among them: Joe and Ellie's three grandchildren, Kyron, Sophia and Philip, ages 9, 4 and 1; and Ellie's stepmother Florence and her 74-year-old mother Arlene, the only ones among their parents who were still alive. The night was filled with laughter and nostalgia.

When Arlene's two children were growing up, she had dedicated herself to working hard and raising them. Once they were out of the house, however, she broke out, becoming once more the social butterfly she had been in her youth, having dozens of friends and a healthy dating life. After she retired she took senior citizen bus trips all over the country, until a stroke two years earlier slowed her down. She had recovered significantly, and now only a shaky right hand and slightly slurred speech showed signs of the stroke.

Since she was now the matriarch of the family, Arlene was given the floor for quite some time, and mostly shared about Joe being the best son-in-law any woman could have.

Ellie laughed. "Listen to her! It's all about him! Forget about the fact that _I'm_ her daughter. Every time we have a fight, no matter what it's about, she takes his side! I always wonder how she would've treated me if Joe and I had ever split up."

"Ellie, she would have _disowned_ you!" her brother Mitch joked.

"Oh, yes," Arlene echoed. "I even would have invited Joe to come live with me!"

Randolph, who had shed the "Pookie" nickname many years earlier, laughed. "It's okay, Ellie, we feel the same way about you. Joe always knew that if he ever hurt you or tried to leave you, he'd have gotten the beat down from everybody in our family!"

Haley joined in. "In fact, we'd have lined up to go first!"

Haley later ribbed Joe and Ellie about giving birth to their three daughters in such rapid succession. "I told them that since they were too young for a doctor to clip them or tie them, they better try an IUD or something before they ended up with a half dozen kids!"

"What's an IUD?" asked Kyron.

His mother Dee covered her eyes. "You don't need to know!"

The conversation grew more serious as they remembered those who were no longer with them: Alvin, Larry, and the older Janelle. Although due to Janelle's health and Larry's work, Joe's parents never remarried, they remained very close friends until her death from diabetes complications at age 51. Larry continued his mission with Hutchins House—the "Annabelle" was dropped for obvious reasons—and was a beloved and actively involved grandparent until his own death five years earlier at age 68.

The saddest remembrance was that of Alvin Jameson, who had missed being able to attend this party by six months. "Your father would have loved to have been here," said his widow Florence. "He was so proud of the woman you became, Ellie."

Liz's husband Will was one of the last to speak. Like Joe and Ellie, he and Liz had fallen in love as high school seniors. Their almost two-year relationship ended badly, however, and it would be another eight years before they'd get back together. They had now been married for three months.

"Believe it or not, my connection to Joe and Ellie goes back even before my birth," he said. "When Liz and I first started dating years ago, she invited me over for dinner to get to know her parents. After dinner, Joe asked me to go downstairs and sit on the stoop with him, so he could talk to me."

"Oh, the stoop talk!" Chuck, Janelle's husband of seven years and Will's cousin, said. "Have you had that yet, Kevin?" he asked Dee's fiancé.

Kevin chuckled. "I think we're a little past the 'daddy with a shotgun' stage."

Will went on. "I was pretty nervous, wondering if he was going to tell me to stay away from his daughter, or threaten me with bodily harm if I hurt her."

"Hey, that's what my stoop talk was about!" Chuck continued joking. Janelle lightly tapped her husband on the arm to shush him.

Will continued. "Instead, I was really shocked when he told me that he met my father once. It was the summer after Janelle was born, and Joe was wrestling with his decisions about going off to college or staying with Ellie and Janelle. My father, he said, shared something with him that he never forgot. My dad told him to think about what he wanted his life to be like in thirty years, and what he would regret or not regret. Thirty years later, what do you think, Joe?"

"I have _no_ regrets!" Joe said with conviction, tenderly taking his wife's hand.

"Something else my father said to him. He told Joe that he could pay him back by helping other young men when they were at crossroads in their lives. All of you know that Joe's been a mentor to dozens of young men over the years. Well, he's also been that for me. Even during the years that Liz and I were apart, he was always someone I could come to for advice."

"So _that's _what you talked about that night?" Liz said with surprise. "You wouldn't tell me, so I conjured up all sorts of ideas in my imagination."

Will laughed and clasped Liz's hand. "Hey, it was a special conversation between your father and me! In fact, I later realized that without that meeting between Joe and my dad, I wouldn't be in this room at all. It's because your parents stayed together that you were born."

Liz's eyes sparkled. "I guess I can forgive you, then!"

With only the sounds of waves softly lapping the beach and the occasional squawks of seagulls penetrating their thoughts, Ellie and Joe reflected on their son-in-law's words. Their own parents had shaped their lives and love, and now they had done the same for another generation.

Joe's fingers gently traced a path down the side of Ellie's face. "I can't believe how much I'm still in love with you, Ellie, even after thirty years."

"That's because I'm so loveable," she said with a teasing smile.

He didn't take it as a joke. "You are, Ellie."

She looked at him with hooded eyes as her hands stroked his arms. "And _that's_ because I have you. You've made my life a joy."

After a few more exchanged kisses, Ellie suddenly turned to her husband with a mischievous grin. "You know, since we have a private beach, I thought it might be fun to take a walk, see where it goes, and then maybe…" she arched her eyebrows seductively, "try a few things on the sand."

Joe laughed. "I always said my wife likes to make things fun."

A short time later, towels over their shoulders, they strolled hand in hand along the hot white grains while inhaling the fresh sea air. After a while, Joe began to complain. "Where exactly are we going?"

"I'm not sure. A quiet spot somewhere. Besides, the walking is good for you," Ellie added, "especially given all the rich food you've been eating lately. You know that's not good for your blood sugar."

"Nag, nag, nag!"

"You better be happy I'm nagging! You want to end up losing your eyesight and not being able to drive? You'd have to rely on me to take you everywhere!"

Joe thought about it and chuckled. "You're right, I definitely don't want that."

"And another side effect of diabetes is erectile dysfunction! If that happens to you, how will I ever fulfill my insatiable desire for sex?" she asked in an innocent tone. "I'll have to find someone else."

Joe, in mock offense, gaped at his wife. "Are you trying to say I can't still satisfy you?"

"You won't if you end up with ED."

He pulled out the front of her bathing suit and peered down before releasing it. "Oh, baby, I will _always_ be able to satisfy you!"

She snorted. "Prove it! A thirteen-year-old boy can do what you just did! Sneaking a peek!"

Joe grinned. "Hey, I needed a little inspiration!"

"You're such a breast man."

"Mmm, and it's a good thing I married a woman with a lot to inspire me with."

Ellie grinned slyly. "So… are you ready to prove you can satisfy me as much as ever?"

He pulled her close and kissed her sensuously, gripping her bottom to rub her against him. "Does this feel like erectile dysfunction to you?"

Ellie laughed. "Not at all! And I think this is a good spot."

They placed their towels on the deserted beach and lay down together to recreate once more the magic they had known for thirty plus years. The sounds of surf washing up on shore muffled but didn't drown out their moans and gasps of pleasure, and Ellie's cries of, "Joseph, my Joseph!" could be heard above the waves.

**THE END**

**It means a lot to writers to hear what their readers think. I'm open to concrit and negative feedback as well. Please let me know your final thoughts! **

If you enjoyed this story, you might want to read the other five stories in the "Lofty Dreams" series, all of which are posted in completion at this site:

- "Lofty Dreams," my P&P canon story in which Will and Liz are high school seniors, told from Liz's POV

- Two short stories that retell parts of "Lofty Dreams" from Will's POV:

"Saturday, Sunday" (5 chapters; Will's version of Hunsford)

"The Picnic" (3 chapters; about Liz and Will's post-Hunsford reunion)

- "Touch Me Again," a sequel to "Lofty Dreams," set ten years later

- and "Images and Illusions," the story of Will's mother, Marletta, and her relationship with Darcy Sr. (Shameless plug here: this one is my personal favorite!)


End file.
